


there’s a feeling you give me, an everglow

by PotofCoffee



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Background Rey/Rose Tico - Freeform, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Pining, background Finn (Star Wars)/Poe Dameron, couples counselling, nonbinary aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-03-01 12:26:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13294851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotofCoffee/pseuds/PotofCoffee
Summary: When Leia receives a coded message from an old friend to meet her on the planet Atox, she knows she must go. Beyond some weird customs the Atoxians have, the mission is just a couple of weeks on a beautiful planet. Leia’s actually looking forward to it.Amilyn doesn’t quite know how she talked herself into this situation, pretending to be married to her best friend, the woman she just happens to be in love with. Still, it’s not like she was about to let Leia go alone, so she’s just going to have to grin and bear it.





	1. I know that you’re with me and the way you will show

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! I'm back and I've brought something that is part tropey goodness, part me fixing everything that bummed me out about tlj!  
> Fair warning, I am in school right now and I'm historically not great at updating when my course schedule gets heavy (gpa takes priority to fic unfortunately) but hopefully I'll manage to be semi-regular with this!  
> Come follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/queerandnerdy) and [tumblr](http://magnass.tumblr.com/) for more of me sobbing about Amilyn and Leia and also for pics of my brand new three month old kitten, General Leia Organa.
> 
> For Jackie and Nova ♥

“The last transport is in the air, the evacuation is complete,” Lt. Connix’s voice comes through loud and clear and Leia sighs. That’s a blessing at least, or it will be if everything else is going just as well. 

Jessika Pava did a great job taking out the cannons on the Dreadnought, the girl flies like she doesn’t know fear, and Leia’s glad that she listened to Poe’s recommendation—she’s been deliberately letting him make more decisions lately to prepare him for future command. In the original version of the plan that was Poe’s job, but the nature of plans is to be rewritten and Leia learned a long time ago to go with the flow.

She grips the side of the command console tight and nervously awaits for something, anything from Poe. 

“C’mon, c’mon,” she whispers, wills everything to go well.

“It’s done,” Poe’s voice comes through, then, tinged with static but still entirely audible, “we’re good to go.” 

Thank the force! Leia lets out a breath she barely knew she was holding and gives the order to go into hyperspace, watches as one by one the ships blink out of the sky around them, and then it’s their turn to jolt into action as the viewport changes from black sky to the bright blue lines of lightspeed travel. 

She smiles and waits for Poe and his team to join her for their debriefing. They’re incredibly lucky that one of their spies was able to warn them about the hyperspace tracker the First Order had somehow invented—and Leia would love to know how that was possible—even more lucky that they had enough notice to do something about it. The strike team composed of Poe, a recently awoken Finn, and Rose Tico (a young mechanic from Cobalt Squadron of Poe’s choosing) had been tasked with making it to the tracker and disabling it. And from the sound of it they were successful. Though they’ll find that out for sure soon.

They blink out of hyperspace into the location Leia and her advisors had chosen. It’s just the  _ Raddus _ now, alone in space, each ship in the fleet having gone to a different location so that even if the tracker was still working they wouldn’t be putting the whole Resistance in jeopardy. At the same moment, Poe, Finn, and Rose get to the bridge.

“I take it from your grins you were successful,” Leia says and the three of them just grin wider.

“We were able to disable it without destroying it, General,” Rose says, breathless but happy. “It’ll be a good while before they even know it’s broken, let alone can fix it.”

“Good,” Leia says, gives her a quick smile because the joy emanating off the three of them is eminently infectious. “Now we get to see for sure.”

The ship hangs in space and there’s a breathlessness in the room as a whole, as everyone waits in anticipation of a First Order fleet winking into space behind them. That moment doesn’t come. Leia’s fairly certain that if the tracker were working they would be there immediately, but the fleet as a whole agreed to wait one standard hour before continuing. She watches the chronometer, feels the minutes pass as eternities and then finally the time is up and the command screens start lighting up with messages from each ship in the fleet announcing the all clear. It’s only then that Leia gives the order to move onto the rendezvous point. They had agreed to meet in the Parmic system, before then making their way to the site of their next base: an abandoned planet in the Kessel system. It had been one of the first planets to be mined for spice, and those mines have long since been abandoned, leaving behind the perfect place for the Resistance to hole up, regroup, and decide what to do next. 

Once they’ve rendezvoused with the other ships, with still no sign of any First Order fleet, Leia feels like she can breathe a bit easier, like perhaps they’ve had a win after too long a time of loss after loss. Taking down Starkiller Base was worth the sacrifice, of course, but the cost was great, and the Resistance as a whole now numbers just over 500 strong.

She congratulates everyone on their hard work and heads to her quarters with every intention of lying down and sleeping for as long as her body will allow. However, soon after she gets to her quarters, her comm unit bleeps with the sound of a new message and with a sigh Leia sits down at her desk to look it over.

Once she’s opened it, she stares down at the communiqué in disbelief. There are only four—no, she thinks with a cold stab of pain, only three—people that know this code. It’s uncrackable, unusable by anyone else, and so she thinks at first that it might be from Chewie. She scans over the contents, looks out specifically for any mention of Rey or Luke but there’s none of that which means… Lando?

It’s been ages since she’s heard from him, as fond as they were of each other, he had always been more Han’s friend than hers, and so when she and Han went their separate ways Leia felt it was tacitly understood that she should let Lando be Han’s.

She wonders suddenly if Lando knows, if he’s heard about Han. If perhaps that’s why he’s contacted her. But of course, there’s no way he could’ve known, not unless Chewie told him and she doubts he had the time. She feels cold all over as she imagines having to tell Lando the news. But she will, she will have to and so she’ll do it. Above all Leia always does what she has to.

She reads through the message more carefully now, making the occasional notation on a datapad beside her as she parses the phrases. It’s not long, but it’s clear. Lando wants to meet her, in secret, on a planet she’s never heard of before, will only share the information he has with her in person, and it is, in his words, ‘enough to turn the tide of the war’. She wonders for a moment if perhaps it’s a trap, as much as she likes Lando their first meeting wasn’t exactly confidence instilling. But no, that isn’t fair, Lando has more than proven himself in the decades since, and so Leia knows that she has to take this message at face value. If Lando has decided to make himself a part of this fight then at the very least Leia owes it to him to put her trust in what he has to say. And if the weapon of which he speaks is half as powerful as he says, well…

The group that Leia amasses in her quarters the following evening to discuss the mission is a mishmash of both ranks and personalities. She doesn’t want to hold this conversation in a main area, doesn’t want news of this mission to get out—there must be a reason that Lando chose to be so secretive with his message and she is taking no chances—but still some people must know. So she has them all meet her for dinner, sits down at the table with Gial Ackbar, Amilyn Holdo, Larma D’Acy, Poe Dameron, Finn, Caluan Ematt, and Kaydel Ko Connix. She invites C-3PO as well, though he insists on standing off to her side, something about protocol that she doesn’t care to hear the specifics on. The dinner is lively and friendly, and they all gamely make conversation while they eat. 

“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here,” Leia begins slowly once they’re all done eating, sees a few nods around the table. Ackbar gives the little twitch of his eyes that serves as a shrug for Mon Calamari and Leia can’t help but smile. It’s comforting to know that even after all that has happened she still has the trust of the people in this room, that they are still happy to follow where she chooses to lead. 

“I’ve received a message,” she continues, “from an old friend. I’m sure some of you,” she looks to Ackbar and Ematt, “remember Lando Calrissian.” At their nods she continues, “he sent me an encoded message informing me that he has information about a weapon, something big enough to turn the tide of this war, and has asked me to meet him for more information.”

“How do we know it’s not a trap?” Ackbar asks.

“He’s right, General,” Poe says, “someone could’ve cracked the code.”

“Not this code,” Leia disagrees, hitting a button so that the message is displayed in the air in front of everyone. 

“That looks like sabacc,” Poe says after a moment. “A slightly unconventional way of recording the bout, but sabacc all the same.”

“It is,” Leia says, “but the code is based on one particular game of sabacc, one I played.” It was the first game she ever won when Han and Lando were teaching her how to play. She remembers the elation she had felt at her victory, the way Han’s eyes had shone with pride as he leaned forward to kiss her. And then she and Han and Lando had come up with an idea for an unbreakable code, linking each letter of Basic to one of the plays of the game and using smuggler’s notation styles to write it down. “The only way to know what this says is to have been in the room while we were playing it. There would be no other way to tell which move means what. And if Lando were trapped and forced into sending it, it would be easy enough to tip his hand.” 

“So we know it’s legitimate,” Amilyn speaks up for the first time and her even tone warms Leia to the core just as it always does. It’s been too long since she’s been able to spend time with her oldest friend, and she can feel the beginnings of a smile tug at her face as Amilyn continues. “What does this Lando want you to do?”

“He’s asked me to meet him on Atox, it’s a small planet in the Daimar sector. He wasn’t able to give me a concrete date, just a span of twelve days, a time, and a location.

“The Daimar sector,” Ematt says slowly, “that’s in the Mid Rim. Can’t say I’ve heard of Atox though.”

“It’s a small planet,” Leia says, “I hadn’t heard of it myself. According to Threepio’s database they’re peaceful but they have some strange customs.”

“Strange how?” Ackbar asks, and Leia gestures to C-3PO where he stands slightly off to one side.

“The planet of Atox is renowned for both its mountain vistas and its textile industry,” Threepio begins, as cheerily as ever. “Atoxian culture believes strongly in family and in the bond of marriage. It is illegal on Atox for a single person to leave their home or participate in any activities if they are not in the company of their family unit. Only married couples can move independently of larger groups and they are required to always be in the company of their mate. Single persons without a family unit must apply to the Council of Atox for permission to move about on their own, permission which is granted only in the case of said person having no living family to speak of.” He drones on a bit longer about other small cultural minutiae, including Atoxians’ lack of any discernible gender identity, until Leia waves him silent. 

“Thankfully,” she says dryly, “strange customs are the worst of our worries. Atox has been small enough to escape notice overall and there is no First Order presence on the planet that we know of. If we’re found to be members of the Resistance I doubt it will go well,” that’s an understatement at best, “but we’re unlikely to be ducking stormtroopers at every turn.”

“General, is it possible you’ll be recognised?” that’s Connix, and Leia’s glad to hear her speak up. She’s young but she’s steady under fire and a quick thinker, exactly the kind of person Leia wants to see taking on a larger role in the Resistance.

“Doubtful,” Leia replies. “The planet’s small enough and far enough out of the way that I don’t expect to run into anyone I know, and it’s been years since my image has been shared on the HoloNet. If we were likely to run into members of the First Order I might be more worried, but I don’t get the sense that Atoxians are likely to be up on galactic politics.” She speaks about everything as if she is going on this mission for the simple reason that she is. She has gathered this group of people together for advice and she is grateful to hear it, but even if every single one of them tells her not to go, she will not heed them. 

“Well you can’t go alone,” Poe says and Leia appreciates how little convincing it takes for him to be ready to accept this. There’s a reason she’s been grooming Poe for leadership, he has a drive for this work, a fire that burns strong—so strong it occasionally makes him lean in the direction of hot-headed though that’s been happening less and less—and it shows in his dedication. “Permission to go with you, General?”

“And how do you suppose we make that work, Commander?” Leia asks. “On my own I can make a case for being allowed to move about independently. Bringing anybody else along simply complicates matters.”

“Um,” Poe swallows heavily, looks slightly nauseous as he says, “we could pretend to be married?” 

Leia bursts out laughing, can’t contain her reaction at the mere thought of being married to young Poe Dameron and the others around the table all join in, even Poe begins to chuckle after a moment. Anyway, from the look on his face when he suggested it, there’s absolutely no way he could make that look believable, even if Leia somehow could.

“Thank you Commander,” Leia says when she’s caught her breath, “but I don’t think that’s going to work.”

“What about me?” Leia was not expecting that. She looks down the table to see the speaker, to see Amilyn, smiling in that utterly disarming way she has, her hand half raised as evidence of her willingness to volunteer.

“What?” Leia asks, utterly bemused.

“You could pretend to be married to me,” Amilyn says, still smiling, and she continues before Leia or anyone else can interject. “That way you won’t draw any attention to yourself by petitioning for the right to move around solo,” her lips quirk a bit at the unintended pun and Leia smiles, is glad that Amilyn is apparently going to treat her normally instead of acting like Leia’s some breakable doll, liable to burst into tears at any moment. “From the sound of it we’ll be less suspicious as a pair anyway.”

“Now that,” Leia says, turning the idea over in her mind, Amilyn knows her better than anyone else, definitely knows her enough to be able to convincingly act the part of her spouse, “just might work.”

“And if Commander Dameron is as determined to tag along as he seems to be,” Amilyn says, no doubt having noticed Poe opening his mouth to speak again, “we could always bring him along as a member of our family unit.”

At the end of the day, they decide to bring not just Poe along, but Finn as well. The two of them pretending to be married will allow them to move around separately from Amilyn and Leia should the need arise, while Poe pretending to be Amilyn and Leia’s son will justify any time they wish to move around in a group. They consult with Threepio who lets them know that no, it isn’t abnormal for a child to stay in close proximity to their parents after marriage, and yes, that should work for them to present themselves as such.

The group breaks up and goes their separate ways after a short discussion of communication with the fleet and who will be in charge in Leia’s absence and a few other small administrative issues that are easily handled. The four-squad will leave the very next day, to give them a good few days to settle in and find out how they’ll get Leia to where she needs to be to meet up with Lando. 

Then everyone disperses, walking off in pairs or trios, leaving Leia behind in her quarters with Amilyn, who stays behind without having to be asked. It always astounds Leia how Amilyn seems to know what she wants without having to ask. The first thing Leia does is walk up to her and slide her arms around her waist in a tight hug. Amilyn hugs her back just as strongly and Leia feels the weight of the past weeks lift off her in a moment at the feeling of being in Amilyn’s warm embrace. There’s something to be said for a good hug from your best friend.

“It’s good to see you,” she says after she’s pulled back. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Amilyn says, her voice is low, steady, and slow, just as it always is, but Leia has learned to detect the intensity in her tone, knows that she means what she says as fervently as Leia does. “I was very sorry to hear about Han.”

“Thank you,” Leia says. There isn’t much else to say really, it happened and she has accepted it and she has not had the time to give it any more thought than that. She moves to change the subject, thinks she might just break down if they talk about it anymore, and while alone in her quarters with Amilyn may be the place for that, it’s certainly not the time. “Thanks for volunteering for the mission,” she says instead, “are you sure you don’t mind being hitched to an old thing like me?”

“We’re the same age, Leia,” Amilyn reminds her, smiling.

“Hm,” Leia says, “I guess it’s the hair, makes you seem younger,” her tone is gently teasing and Amilyn laughs at her words.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she says, “though if I were going grey as nicely as you are I might just stop dyeing it entirely.”

“But then how would I find you in a crowd?” Leia pokes back and they both grin wide at each other. Leia feels a surge of excitement at the thought of the mission ahead of them, spending a couple weeks with Amilyn on a beautiful planet with no work or rebellions or death seems, quite frankly, therapeutic. “Um,” she says then, remembering one aspect of her research that has yet to come up, “I think you should know that the Atoxians are quite openly affectionate, nothing over the top,” she blushes slightly, “but they definitely don’t hold back on public displays of affection.”

“Oh,” Amilyn pauses for a moment and Leia fears that she is about to change her mind, about to say she cannot do it, and then Leia will have to confront how deeply disappointing that is, but then she shrugs and says, “well I don’t have a problem with that as long as you don’t.”

“Of course not,” Leia says, “we’re both adults, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“What about Commander Dameron and Finn? Do they know about that?” Amilyn asks and honestly Leia hadn’t even thought about that. 

“Oh, well, I had sort of assumed that they’re already,” she waves her hand in a vague gesture, though she realises that is quite the assumption. It’s just she hasn’t ever seen Poe take to someone as quickly as he took to Finn and the affection seems just as strong from Finn’s side and so while Leia never really thought of the two of them, when Poe suggested bringing Finn along she had merely thought that it made sense and moved on. “I guess we’ll find out. You hadn’t actually met Poe before today, had you?” she asks then, realising that somehow amidst everything she doesn’t remember them ever crossing paths. 

“No,” Amilyn agrees, “I only know what you’ve told me. He seems like a nice young man—”

“For a fly boy?” Leia finishes and Amilyn laughs. 

“I have nothing against pilots as a whole,” she chides, “despite what some of my prior comments may have led you to believe.” 

“So you’re not going to write him off as trigger-happy and impulsive?” Leia can’t help but press the point.

“I knew those comments would come back and haunt me one day,” Amilyn says with a roll of her eyes. “It’s not my fault you have a weak spot for hotshot pilots.” She grins and then sobers, says more seriously, “you like him, Leia, and that’s always been enough for me.”

“I’m honoured,” Leia drawls and Amilyn leans in to punch her gently on the shoulder. Then her hand drops to Leia’s forearm and she squeezes it gently.

“I have to ask,” she says reluctantly, “because I wouldn’t be able to stand it if I didn’t say anything, but are you okay with this? I mean with a fake spouse and a fake child,” she sighs, bites her lip, “I don’t want to overstep but…” she trails off but Leia understands what she’s trying to say.

“It’ll be a little strange,” she says after a few moments of pure silence. “But I’m okay with it, I promise. Plus,” she tries to smile, has to make light of this to relieve the tension, “I could do worse in both the spouse and the son department.” She covers Amilyn’s hand with her own and squeezes it gently, hopes that that conveys how she feels and it seems to work because Amilyn doesn’t press any further, just sits with Leia in silence and grabs her fingers with her own and squeezes tight.

Amilyn hangs around for a while longer and Leia’s glad of that, she doesn’t want her to leave. They sit on a sofa and discuss the latest events on D’Qar, where the fleet is headed next, what they’re planning to do after this.

Leia tries to keep the despair from her voice as she speaks but they’ve lost so many people lately and for some reason it’s hitting her hard than it used to. She feels tired to the core; she just wants this all to be over. Amilyn seems to understand that, seems to sense that Leia needs the support, and she calmly listens and responds where Leia falls silent and reminds Leia again and again that there is still hope. 

Before she leaves for the night, Amilyn takes a small rock out of the pocket of her long dress and hands it to Leia. It’s rough grey rock on one side, exposed crystal on the other, brilliant teal formations that glistens in the low light of hyperspace coming in through the viewport. It’s hung on a thin neo-leather thong, and it’s small enough that Leia could wear it tucked into her shirt without notice. 

“It’s Rathalayan firestone,” Amilyn says quietly. “On Charros IV it’s thought that Rathalayan firestone has a calming influence, on Balamak it’s called ‘Hope Stone’. There are even rumours that the Nightsisters of Dathomir used to say that Rathalayan firestone was a link to the dead.”

“So you’ve finally moved on from astrology?” Leia teases. 

“Just diversifying my knowledge base,” Amilyn shoots back. “Whatever people believe about it, it’s beautiful and it made me think of you,” she stops and then rushes on, “I mean, I thought you would like it.”

“I love it,” Leia says with a smile, “just warn me in advance if you’re going to take it and use it to reanimate a corpse, okay?”

“Don’t worry,” Amilyn laughs, brushing her chest with her hand, “I have my own for that.”


	2. and we swore on that night we’d be friends til we die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now for Amilyn's pov!
> 
> I should mention, the title for this fic and all the chapter titles are from Everglow by Coldplay and uhhh just go listen to it cause it's the perfect Amilyn/Leia song and I've been blasting it on repeat while writing this.

Amilyn wakes up, stretches, begins to sit up, and then remembers what the coming day brings and falls back against her pillows with a groan. Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth closed? It’s not like she was about to let Leia go off on this mission on her own like she was planning, but surely there was a better way to go about it. Weeks of pretending to be married to Leia? She’s not entirely sure she’ll survive. 

Thinking about what the mission will entail, she wonders which will be worse, having to pretend that she’s pretending to be in love Leia or having Leia be affectionate with her and knowing that it’s all an act? Well not much sense theorising about that, she decides, she’ll soon get to find out. 

Amilyn sometimes feels like she’s been in love with Leia for centuries. Millenia, even, her love stretching from a stars birth to its eventual destruction. The truth of it is she’s been in love with Leia since they were teenagers, since the day Amilyn looked at her best friend and in her eyes she seemed to shine brighter than any of the stars she had dedicated the better part of her life to studying. They are far from those years now but that love only grew as Amilyn did, changing from youthful infatuation to an enduring and overwhelming adoration that Amilyn has never been able to do anything about. Leia has made it painfully clear that she is only interested in men and, even if that weren’t the case, why in the world would she be interested in Amilyn? Even though Amilyn knows this to her core, however, her heart will not listen to reason, will not stop loving Leia no matter how she has begged and wished and pleaded.

So Amilyn has lived with it, has been very careful not to let on, not to let Leia know how she feels. Has buried the truth of her feelings deep down and has instead dedicated herself to being the very best friend she can possibly be. She has silently loved Leia through boyfriends and breakups and a husband, through the utter elation of Ben and through the deepest desperation of Kylo Ren, through a war and through the birth of a New Republic and through seeing that republic crumble and fall. Leia has been through so much in her life, too much, really. Amilyn has done her best to merely be there for her throughout it all.

To other people, she has gotten a reputation perhaps for standoffishness, certainly for not being interested in dating or in meeting this or that cute person that for a while—years in the past now, thankfully—everyone seemed so determined in introducing her to. Amilyn knows that not one of them would ever be able to live up to Leia in her eyes, that no one could ever dare hope to win a battle against Leia in Amilyn’s heart, and so she has known that it would be utterly unfair of her to let anyone believe that they could. When she has had sex throughout the years it has been with relative strangers whom she has never met before and will never see again, and never ever with humanoid brunettes. 

She sits up more slowly now, with a deep sigh. Somehow she needs to survive this mission without either taking advantage of the situation—and already she feels a little sick at the fact that a part of her will enjoy every second of the play acting—or letting Leia know how she feels about her. She stands, takes a deep breath to center herself, and busies herself with getting ready. 

She heads to the hangar bay dressed in a simple grey tunic, belted at the waist, and dark purple pants. The monochromatic look is something she is perhaps overly partial to, but everyone she knows has learned to expect her wardrobe to change with her hair colour. Her boots are grey synthleather, functional but dressy enough for Amilyn’s taste, and while she’s left her osmium tiara in her quarters, she’s wearing her customary bracelets, marked with intricate patterns that trace the constellations of Gatalenta’s night sky. She always wears those, finds that they make her feel close to home no matter where she is. 

Her trusty old Defender-5 blaster pistol is tucked underneath her clothes, secure and invisible. Leia may swear that the planet is peaceful and that they’re not going to run into anyone or anything untoward but she wants to be ready for anything that might happen. 

She meets up with the others in the beat up old T1 shuttle they’ll be taking to the planet. It’s small enough and old enough that no one will look twice at it and large enough to have a hyperdrive, meaning it’s perfect for this mission. Walking inside, she is not at all prepared for the sight of Leia. She is dressed in black: black shirt, black pants, high black boots, with a grey vest. The colours bring out the grey in her hair and if Amilyn had thought she looked distinguished before, it has nothing on how she looks now: elegant, commanding, and hot as hell. She does her best to smile at Leia and the others, takes her place inside the shuttle, and wonders desperately if Leia Organa will be the death of her. 

Once Leia gives the word, Commander Dameron pilots the ship out of the hangar bay and out into space and whatever else Amilyn may have privately heard or thought of him, she cannot deny that he is an exceptionally capable pilot. 

It takes them five hours to get to the planet, and Amilyn is happy to relax in one of the shuttle’s threadbare seats with Leia nearby and listen to the thrum of the engines. There is beauty in silence, and one of Amilyn’s favourite things about Leia has always been her willingness to sit with her without filling every moment with speech. 

When they get in range of Atox, they move forward into the cockpit, joining Finn and Commander Dameron just in time for the message that comes through from the planet’s surface.

“They’re asking for a declaration of everyone on board, General,” Dameron says.

“Stop calling me General, Poe,” Leia replies absentmindedly. 

“Sorry, G—” he just barely avoids saying the word again, shakes his head and grins, “don’t worry, I’ll be more careful once we’re down there.”

“Good,” Leia says. Then, “we’ll use our own first names, it’ll be easier that way, but declare us all as having the surname ‘Arrel’”

“I’ve never had a last name before,” Finn whispers and Amilyn’s heart surges at his words. She’s heard his story, of course, everyone has by now, but she had never quite realised the reality of it until in this moment. No last name, no family to speak of. She wishes in this moment that she could fix that, but what could she do? She’ll be his fake mother-in-law for a few weeks and then she’ll be his commanding officer again, that’s just how it is.

“Well welcome to the world of two names, Finn Arrel,” Dameron—and she really needs to start thinking of him as Poe now—says with a wide grin. Amilyn glances at Leia, sees an expression that must mirror her own. They both know what it’s like to lose family, but Amilyn’s never thought of what it would be like to never have it in the first place. 

They’re given docking clearance and once they’ve landed Leia and Amilyn leave the ship together to speak to whoever’s in charge. As visitors to the world they’ll no doubt be expected to register their information with some official or another. Amilyn wonders what the process will be like, in her experience it can take anywhere from minutes to days to get clearance, but Atox is not a large Inner Rim world, it’s small and out of the way and therefore hopefully less bogged down by bureaucracy than Amilyn is used to. The first few couples they see when they step out of the ship—all couples, everyone is moving around in pairs—are holding hands, and so it shouldn’t surprise Amilyn when she feels Leia slip her hand into hers. Still, the feeling of Leia’s cool palm against hers and of Leia’s fingers twined tight with her own makes her heart thud hard in her chest.

They ask for directions and are guided towards a small booth in the corner manned by an Atoxian in rich red clothing. Atoxians, it seems are tall—everyone they’ve seen so far has been at least a foot taller than Amilyn herself—dark-skinned humanoids. The evidence of the textile industry C-3PO had mentioned is evident on every person they’ve seen, and Amilyn hopes that at some point during their time here they’re able to take a close look at some of the beautiful fabrics she’s seeing. 

“What’s the purpose of your visit to Atox?” the Atoxian asks them and Amilyn and Leia both smile as innocently as humanly possible. 

“We heard of your planet’s beauty from a fellow traveller,” Leia says sweetly, “my wife and I have come with our son and his husband to see the mountains he spoke of.”

“Very good,” they say, “very good indeed. Are there any places in particular you wanted to see?”

There’s a danger in showing their hand too early, but at the same time they will have to eventually tell people where they are going if they want to get there and so Amilyn decides to risk it.

“My wife and I were interested in seeing Talak’s Peak,” Amilyn says as she puts an arm around Leia’s shoulders. “Weren’t you, darling?” she hates how easily the endearment rolls off her tongue.

“Mmhmm,” Leia agrees, slipping her arm around Amilyn’s waist and leaning in close.

“Oh!” the Atoxian says and then—are they winking? Amilyn can’t quite tell but it sort of looks like it. “Talak’s Peak! Of course!” There’s that weird almost wink again and Amilyn is just praying that Talak’s Peak is not the place where people on this planet go to perform weird sex acts or anything else like that. There is a finite end to how far she can take this charade without completely crumbling. “Well, well, here,” they wink and pull a card out of their robes with a flourish, “give my friend a call to arrange your visit to the peak. We don’t get many visitors at this time of year so I’m sure they’ll be able to fit you in! Now, the docking fee is 200 credits,” Amilyn thinks that’s a little steep, but Leia silently hands over the credits, “and may I suggest either the City Villa or the Azure Resort for your stay.” They give them a map and wave them on their way with a magnanimous smile.

“At the very least it doesn’t seem like they’re suspicious of visitors,” Leia murmurs as they walk back to the ship. She’s still tucked into Amilyn’s side, stays that way all the way back to the ship. They only separate when they’re safely inside and Amilyn immediately misses the warmth of Leia’s body against hers.

She is so kriffed.

They gather their things and Poe and Finn and head off into town. It’s more of a city, really, and if Amilyn hadn’t spent so much of her youth in Coruscant she might describe it as bustling. It’s certainly busier than any of the cities on Gatalenta and Amilyn wonders at that, wishes she knew more about their economy already because it’s odd for a city with as little offworld trade as she heard Atox had to have such a busy capital. 

That being said, they don’t see many non-Atoxians in the crowd. They get a few odd looks, but not as many as Amilyn might have otherwise expected, and all the signs she can see (from the behaviour of the docking bay official to the number of hotels) suggest that Atox is a fairly popular vacation spot during other seasons. 

They choose to stay at the Azure Resort. It’s less of a hotel, more a collection of small circular cottages—the buildings on Atox all take a decidedly spherical shape—connected by tranquil little pathways. It’s exorbitantly expensive, but Amilyn stays quiet on that front, just raises her eyebrows slightly as Leia pays what she’s asked and they all get stamped with key code chips in return. The walls of the pod, and pod is the only word Amilyn can really use to describe it, are the shiny opaque white of changeable opacity transparisteel. They haven’t cut any corners, that’s for sure.

Inside, the pod is even more luxurious. Everything gleams, the white milkstone floors are covered in richly woven rugs in a multitude of colours and when Poe finds the toggle for the walls, changing them from opaque to clear, they get a look at the gorgeous view from the pod: three tall mountains standing proudly above a clear, azure lake. The resort’s namesake, no doubt. 

Poe and Finn veer left into one room, and Amilyn follows Leia into another. She stops short in the doorway as Leia walks in ahead of her and Oh Kriff, how did she not think of this? The middle of the room holds one singular bed. One bed, for the both of them. One single kriffing bed.

“You match,” Leia says with a smile and she’s right. The covers on the bed are dark purple, the walls a pale grey tinged lilac. Amilyn nods, hopes that that’s why Leia thinks she’s acting so strange right now. “Which side do you sleep on?” Leia asks then, plain as ever, and Amilyn feels like she’s choking on air. How in the world can Leia be so calm about this?

“Oh,” she says, “it’s okay, I can sleep on the floor.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leia says, “it’s not like we’ve never shared a bed before.”

Once. They’ve shared a bed once. They were 18 and Leia didn’t want to be alone and Amilyn stayed awake the whole night to make sure that nothing untoward happened. If this were going to be just one night she would do the same again but this is going to be days and days and Amilyn needs to be as alert as possible. So Amilyn nods, chooses the right side of the bed (it's closer to the door) thinks that maybe after Leia’s fallen asleep, she’ll slide down to the ground and get a few hours of sleep that way. 

It’s late in the day by the time they’ve gotten settled, so the next order of business is to head out in search of food. They all go, Amilyn and Leia and Poe and Finn, both pairs holding hands and walking close. Amilyn can’t help but steal surreptitious glances at the two young men, as if she’ll be able to discern the exact nature of their relationship just by looking at them. They seem comfortable enough holding hands at least, but then so do she and Leia she’s sure so that doesn’t really mean anything. 

The main thoroughfare of the city is packed with elegant light speeders and groups of people. Almost all are moving around in pairs, the only exceptions being obvious family groups. Leia wasn’t kidding about the Atoxians being publicly affectionate, either. There’s nothing Amilyn would consider to be overtly sexual, thankfully, she was vaguely worried that the status quo would be raunchy makeouts—or worse—in the streets. But the couples are all walking close, hands clasped or arms around each other, and all are quick to drop light kisses on their partner’s lips or cheeks. 

They find a restaurant almost immediately, the signs proclaiming fresh local food. Amilyn’s excited to see what the diet is like on Atox. The answer, it seems, is noodle based dishes, either in broth or not, with loads of fresh plants. It’s fresh and flavourful and makes a delightful change from ship rations and Amilyn finds herself eating an enormous bowlful within minutes. 

When she looks up from her food Leia is watching her, her eyes dancing with mirth and Amilyn just shakes her head, dares her to say anything about it. 

“I take it you like the food?” Leia says with a grin, undeterred. 

Amilyn wants to retort, to say something devastatingly clever and dismissive in reply, but she cannot because suddenly Leia is leaning up and putting her hand in Amilyn’s hair to draw her in closer and placing a chaste kiss on her lips and Amilyn cannot think about anything but how soft Leia’s lips are and trying to remember how to breathe. 

Leia pulls back after a second, whispers that someone was looking at them for a bit too long and Amilyn nods. Across the table, Poe and Finn are sitting close together and Poe has his arm around Finn’s shoulders and they’re both grinning and Amilyn wishes, desperately and plaintively, that this could be as easy for her as it so obviously is for them. 

She doesn’t say anything, just puts her arm around Leia’s shoulders and lets her lean in, watches her place one hand on her thigh and starts counting the hours rather than the days until this whole thing is done. 

After they are done eating they wander around for a bit, make like interested tourists here for nothing more than to see what Atox has to offer. At Amilyn’s request, they go into a huge hall showcasing the Atoxians’ impressive textile work. There are woven fabrics of all colours and textures and varieties and Amilyn gets lost in her wonder at it all. She speaks with the sellers of the wares as she runs her hands over the fabrics, learning as much as she can about each style and method and source.

This, she thinks as she holds silk so delicate it feels like water in her hands, this is why they do this. This is why the fight matters. For the wonder and beauty of planets like this, so these people can continue to exist peacefully and dedicate their lives to their craft.

At one small booth, near the back of the hall, Amilyn is literally stopped in her tracks by the beauty of one of the fabrics. It is dark blue, studded with silver embroidery of Atox’s constellations and Amilyn is awed before she even touches the cool silken threads. When they head back to the resort, it is with a bolt of that fabric held firm in Amilyn’s arms. She wonders if she will be able to use it though, if she will be able to look at it, even, without thinking of the way Leia had smiled and leaned in, had insisted on buying it for her ‘wife’, had said ‘anything for you, darling’, had kissed Amilyn sweetly as the merchant had packaged it up. She has the horrible sinking feeling that that fabric will always be linked in her mind with the grotesque charade of Leia playing into every one of her deepest desires. 

Back at the resort they are all content to sit around and watch the sun set over the mountains together—a beautiful combination of blues and greens and purples that impresses Amilyn even if she privately prefers the many suns of Gatalenta and the way they make the evening sky look alight with fire—before retiring for bed. Amilyn changes into her long nightgown, brushes her teeth and her hair, and then leaves the refresher so that Leia may have a turn.

She gets into the bed, starts to read a datapad she had acquired earlier about the astrological beliefs on Atox. The only planets in the system she’s studied are Daimar itself and Eytera, but she can already see similarities between their beliefs and Atox’s. It’s always so interesting what things hold true between worlds and what things don’t. She’s enjoying it tremendously. And then all thought in her brain ends immediately because Leia steps back into the room and if Amilyn believed in any deities she’d be praying to all of them because… wow. 

If she’d thought Leia looked good earlier in the black—okay she did, she really did, but she looks even better now. She’s wearing a green silk nightgown and she’s got her hair down and she looks beautiful and ethereal and also, vulnerable, maybe? in a way Amilyn can barely comprehend but feels oh so privileged to be seeing. 

Leia wastes no time sliding under the covers, curling into Amilyn’s side and pulling Amilyn’s arm around her shoulders in the most casual way imaginable. 

“Whatcha reading?” she asks and Amilyn responds simply by reading the passage she’s on out loud to Leia, trusts herself to keep her composure better if she’s distracted, is honestly shocked that she still even remembers how to read when she has Leia in her arms, when she can feel Leia’s thigh against her own, Leia’s breasts against her, when she can smell her, when it feels as if she is closer to her than she has ever been before.

She doesn’t stop reading until she hears Leia’s breathing even out, says her name softly and knows she’s asleep from her lack of response. She puts the datapad down on the side table, turns off the small lamp, and lays back against the pillows. She’s about to slip out of Leia’s arms and onto the floor but she is so warm there and Leia is so comfortable against her and her mind rebels at the idea of trading that for the cold hard floor. She steels her resolve though, gives herself five precious minutes to enjoy the hazy glow of this moment before she moves. Sleep tugs at her harder than expected, and with no intent on her part whatsoever, her eyes close. She’s asleep in Leia’s embrace a minute later.

When Amilyn wakes up, immediately disappointed in her own failure the night before, the first thing she sees is hair. Somehow while they were asleep, Leia’s hair managed to get all over Amilyn’s face. She gently pulls it away, taking care not to tug at any of the strands, and takes stock of her situation.

The hair thing makes sense after a moment, because somehow while they were asleep Leia moved up the bed or Amilyn moved down or, perhaps, both, and now Leia’s face is nestled into Amilyn’s neck and her body is half on top of Amilyn’s, and they’re one big jumble of limbs and hair. Lots and lots of hair. Amilyn had never really thought of the practical aspect of Leia’s hair before, she knows it’s Alderaanian custom to wear it long but she’s only ever seen Leia with it braided. She feels uncomfortable, too, knows that on Alderaan it was considered a very private matter to touch someone else’s hair, so she chooses to lie completely still, doesn’t brush Leia’s hair away, does her best to ignore how it tickles her skin as much as she tries to ignore the fact that the arm Leia is lying on is asleep. 

Both of those things, however, are much better to concentrate on than the fact that Amilyn’s skin burns with the desire to touch Leia more and more, the fact that she is explicitly aware of every point of contact between their two bodies. She closes her eyes, tries to think of planets and stars and anything other than her current situation.

Thankfully she doesn’t have to wait all that long until Leia stretches, opens her eyes and looks at Amilyn and herself and smiles ruefully.

“Sorry,” she says.

“It’s fine,” Amilyn replies, because for all the reasons Leia could possibly be thinking of, it is. “I, um, tried not to touch your hair,” she says awkwardly because she doesn’t want Leia to think she’s stepped over any sort of boundary. Leia just smiles, shifts, turns her head so she can gather her hair together, sweeping it off of Amilyn’s body, and then curls closer into Amilyn’s side.

“Here,” she says, taking Amilyn’s hand and putting it in her hair. 

“I thought…” Amilyn’s frozen like that, terrified of doing the wrong thing.

“Touching someone’s hair is reserved only for the people closest to that person,” Leia says, “but that’s what you are Amilyn. You’re my best friend, you can touch my hair anytime you like.”

So Amilyn does, Amilyn cards her fingers through Leia’s hair, is glad that her arms are long enough that she can follow the strands from root to tip, focuses on the way Leia sighs happily into the feeling and not on the way that ‘best friend’ somehow felt simultaneously like a warm hug and a punch in the gut.

They relax and doze for a while longer; Amilyn toggles the wall to transparency and they watch the sun rise, the sky resplendent in dark teal. When they finally get up, it is with sighs and grumbles and a marked desire for some caf. Thankfully, Finn has already made some, and all four gather around the table in the common area nibbling on strange fruit and discussing their plans for the day.

Finn and Poe will explore the east side of the city, it’s decided, while Amilyn and Leia head west to the address they were given yesterday. They head out not much later; full of food and caf, Amilyn feels prepared to face whatever the day may hold.

She and Leia wind through the busy streets, holding hands the whole way, following the map to the address on the card. They get to the building and it immediately stands out from all those around it. The walls are bright shiny pink and a sign on the front of the building proclaims ‘Better Together,’ with smaller writing beneath, ‘Maynith Jorrant’s re-coupling expeditions,’ and then, much smaller a ways below that, ‘when it comes to love, trust Maynith.’

“Huh,” Leia says. 

“Odd,” Amilyn says, because, well, it is.

“Did you notice the way the Atoxian at the docking bay said ‘Talak’s Peak’?” Leia asks.

“I did, yes,” Amilyn says, grateful that she didn’t have to be the one to bring it up, “I think they might have been trying to wink as they said it too.” 

“I certainly thought so,” Leia agrees, “do you think we need some sort of code word, something that lets us know the other one wants to leave?”

“Need a safeword already?” Amilyn jokes without thinking, immediately regrets the words as soon as they’re out of her mouth. Leia just looks at her, arches one perfect eyebrow, and Amilyn can’t breathe as she waits for a response.

“We are married,” Leia drawls easily, “who knows, we may have to find a way to spice things up.” 

Amilyn does her best to chuckle, prays that she’s not blushing, curses her mouth for speaking before her brain can get involved and definitely ignores all the implications of Leia’s words.

They walk inside the building, a chime sounding as they step through the door, stand by the counter and wait for a shorter than average Atoxian to make their way out of the back room and up towards them.

“Oh the Arrels!” they say with a wide grin. “I hope you don’t mind but my friend Triko let me know you’d be headed my way! Interested in Talak’s Peak, are you?”

There’s that odd tone again, and Leia and Amilyn just nod in unison, tensed to discover the worst about this place.

“Well no shame in that,” the Atoxian says, “every couple needs a little help now and then. But where are my manners? I’m Maynith Jorrant, please call me Maynith, and I have found my life’s calling in helping couples fix the wrongs that ail their relationships. Between my know-how and the sheer transcendent beauty of the mountain you’ll be like newlyweds in no time!”

Beside her, Amilyn feels Leia let out a sigh of relief; Amilyn just tenses more. Not only does she have to pretend to be Leia’s wife while walking around on this planet she now has to survive couples counselling?


	3. oh they say people come, say people go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aight y'all enjoy! I'm about to start an in-theatre LOTR marathon and figured I'd post this first!

With quite a bit of luck, the first day of the excursion to the mountain is the first of the twelve day span during which Leia is to wait for Lando. His instructions were to wait for him each day at midnight (the 26th hour as Atox runs on a 26 hour day and 8 day week) in a cave around the back of Ixui falls. Thankfully, they were able to easily obtain a map from Maynith by feigning idle curiosity, and so Leia has at least a general idea of where they must go. She just hopes wherever they’ll be staying is nearby, she doesn’t much relish the idea of having to hike for hours and hours each night. 

As she waits for Amilyn to get ready, Leia concentrates on briefing Poe and Finn. They are to stay behind, continue exploring the city and learning as much as they can about Atox as a whole, and make sure that the shuttle is ready to go at a moment’s notice, just in case they need to get off the planet in a hurry. Leia hopes that won’t be the case, but she also remembers Lando, how his ability to get into trouble seemed to rival even Han’s, and so she wants to be prepared for any eventuality.

Amilyn comes out of their room with her pack slung over one shoulder and Leia is undeniably awed by the sight. She is used to seeing Amilyn in dresses—functional, yes, but flowing, elegant—on this mission however she has tended to more rugged options. Today, it seems, is no exception and Leia can’t help but let her eyes scan over her body as she takes it all in. Tight pants, tight shirt, vest, and boots all in coordinated shades of dark purply greys that compliment her hair perfectly. She looks… striking. 

Amilyn always looks good, of course, she is an exceptionally beautiful woman after all, and Leia would have to be blind not to notice that, but there is something about seeing her dressed in such an atypically butch fashion, her blaster strapped at her waist and her hair tied up so only a few curls frame her face, that makes her look even more impressive than usual. And then she stops because she realises she has been staring at her friend, and Amilyn’s looking at her sort of strangely, and Leia silently curses and hopes Amilyn hasn’t thought anything of it.

“Ready to go?” she asks, and Amilyn just smiles, nods, reaches out her hand for Leia to take. Leia does so, grabs her own pack with her other hand, and they exit the pod on their way to a run of days that Leia has been viewing with anticipation and trepidation in roughly equal measure. 

The group waiting for them at Maynith’s building is small—they did tell Leia that in the offseason their groups for such events are half the size they are during the peak tourism months. As it is, there is Maynith and Amilyn and Leia, three sets of Atoxian couples, and two relatively young men—a Kage and a Mirialan respectively, if Leia’s not mistaken. They are all outwardly affectionate with each other, and in fact none seem to be harbouring the type of resentment Leia would expect from married couples who needed counselling. Then again, who is she to judge? Still, she can’t help but think of some of the more, well, vibrant fights she and Han had and wonder if couples on Atox fight the same way. Or if perhaps Maynith has so much business because they keep it all bottled up inside. She’ll soon find out, she figures. She follows Amilyn’s lead into a speeder bus that is much too large for their small group, and then they’re away. 

It takes about an hour for the speeder bus to reach the base of the tallest of the three mountains that lie just beyond town. In that time, Leia and Amilyn make casual conversation with the only other non-Atoxian couple there. Valo, the young Kage, and his husband Zae, the Mirialan, introduce themselves as merchants; they’re vague enough on the details that Leia is sure they’re as much honest merchants as Han used to be. They seem nice enough, though, and while Leia sits by quietly, they earnestly tell Amilyn that they’ve been married for six years and were recommended to Maynith by a friend. 

Amilyn, for her part, engages them both easily, veering off into an earnest conversation about the astrology on Mirial that, to Leia’s surprise, somehow winds up with Zae confiding in Amilyn more than a few specifics about what problems in their relationship they have come to specifically address. Leia can only wonder at Amilyn, at her steady tone and calm nature that Leia has always found so comforting. It seems the effect she has—that instant comfort that always makes Leia want to bare her soul to her—is universal. She squeezes Amilyn’s hand a little tighter in encouragement and Amilyn turns to her immediately.

She asks Leia if anything is wrong not in words but in the angle of her head and the raising of one eyebrow and Leia just smiles, shakes her head, leans up and in to place a gentle kiss on Amilyn’s lips. It’s something they have to do to maintain their cover, of course, but Leia is amazed at how natural it feels, these little intimacies that she and Amilyn now share. It must be because they’re such close friends, Leia thinks. That’s the only explanation for it.

They reach the base of the mountain and trade the speeder bus for a hovertrain.

“We’ll take this up most of the way,” Maynith explains, “but the last three hours are hiked. It helps to keep the area unsullied by the technology of our day-to-day lives. And I’m sure you’ll all find the exertion cleansing,” they smile benevolently and it takes Leia a moment to realise that they are completely in earnest about this. Amilyn squeezes her hand and when Leia looks up and grins at her she can see that Amilyn was thinking the exact same thing. She is once again subsumed by the joy at it being Amilyn who is with her, that she is not here alone or—god forbid—with Poe; with Amilyn at her side she feels like she can get through anything. 

On the hovertrain they end up seated near one of the Atoxian couples. Sarith and Miko both work in the textile industry, and Amilyn is quick to start up a conversation about fabric while Leia once again observes, adding only a word or two here and there as she’s bid.

Once they’re out and hiking it’s different, they’re all breathless from the exertion and so it’s harder to talk. Leia concentrates on making sure she’s stepping on solid ground after she almost falls by stepping on a wobbly piece of the loose rock that covers the mountain as far as she can see. It is only her tight grip on Amilyn’s hand that keeps her from going down face first, and that is something Leia hadn’t thought about. Even here, on this hike, they are still holding hands, as are all the couples around them. She would’ve expected not to like that, quite frankly, would’ve expected her hand to get sweaty and for it to be uncomfortable keeping pace with Amilyn. Instead, it’s quite pleasant. Amilyn’s hand is firm and dry in hers, and Amilyn is quite good at matching her steps with Leia’s shorter strides.

“This reminds me of our erstwhile youth,” Leia says quietly to Amilyn on one of their rest breaks, shades her eyes from the sun with one hand as she looks up at her.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Amilyn agrees. “Though so far Maynith is a lot less interested in almost killing us than Chief Pangie was.”

“From what I remember,” Leia reminds her, “you were quite ecstatic about the possibility of, what was it? The nearness and inevitability of death?”

“Guilty as charged,” Amilyn laughs. “That was a long time ago though, I’m older and much less resilient now.”

“Ha!” Leia says, “like I believe that.”

“Hopefully we won’t have to find out,” Amilyn says with shrug, and then she leans down and drops a casual kiss on Leia’s lips. It’s the first time Amilyn has kissed her in this charade that they are playing and that makes it special in a way Leia cannot hope to understand. It is soft and sweet and just a bit deeper than any of their other kisses have been and it is only after Amilyn has pulled away that Leia realises their conversation had attracted an audience in the other members of their excursion.

“Shall we continue?” Maynith says, and Leia quickly drops her water bottle into her pack and grabs Amilyn’s hand. As she walks she concentrates on her steps and on her breathing and ignores completely the feeling of disappointment she had felt as soon as Amilyn had pulled away from their kiss. 

After another hour and a half their hiking trail levels off and they are able to walk through gently sloped forest for the rest of the way. It’s magical, Leia thinks, how they are surrounded by trees one minute and the next are stepping out into a bright airy clearing. There is a small lake, and Leia’s heart stops for a second as she sees it is somehow the exact same shade of teal as Toniray. Besides the lake, there is a cluster of ten small cabins, once again in the spherical style Leia has begun to expect, and what appears to be a large fire pit. Maynith assigns each couple a cabin, asks them to all meet at the fire pit in an hour’s time after they’ve had a chance to get settled and freshen up. 

The cabin is just as bright and luxurious inside as the place they have been staying in town. Leia wonders at that, at the obvious affluence they have seen exhibited at every turn. The trip wasn’t cheap by any means but Maynith must be making a good deal of money to be able to offer accommodations like this. They have yet to have seen any evidence of poverty on this world, but Leia has been to enough planets in enough star systems to be sure that it exists somewhere.

She sets her pack down on a chair and starts poking around the cabin. The ‘fresher is huge, with both bath and shower (water, not sonic) easily large enough for two. The sheets are soft silk and in a cabinet nearby Leia finds an impressive collection of condoms made for a dizzying array of beings and genitalia. There is an intent laced through it all, that’s for sure. 

“Well,” Amilyn says with a quirk of her eyebrow when she sees what Leia has found, “obviously Maynith is good at their job.”

“Apparently,” Leia drawls before putting the basket back and closing the cabinet’s doors. 

She steps into the ‘fresher to wipe the dirt off her face and arms, gets halfway through the task and decides it would be just as easy to shower it off. 

The shower is gloriously hot and there’s a panel that lets her control everything from the angle of the spray to the pressure. Once she’s clean she stands under the spray for a good few minutes, letting the steady pressure of water beating down on her neck and shoulders release some of the tension that’s been accumulating for much longer than she’d care to admit. She can’t remember the last time that she had done anything other than hopped in a sonic for five minutes. It’s glorious.

When she gets out she braids her hair loosely, looks down at the pile of her dirty clothes and frowns. They’re much too dirty for her to wear now so she settles for wrapping herself in a towel before stepping back into the room. She must have surprised Amilyn, because she sees her eyes widen slightly and she realises then that perhaps Amilyn is not comfortable with Leia wearing nothing but a towel. Fair enough, she’s not exactly in the prime of her life and while she and Amilyn are close they have never cohabitated like this. 

“Sorry,” she says, “I decided to shower on a whim.”

“It’s fine,” Amilyn says, and if her voice sounds a little strange, Leia pays it no heed. 

Amilyn decides that she, too, would like a shower. Leaves Leia alone to dress and then work on brushing her hair out and braiding it tightly. She’s wearing it in a single braid pinned in a circle on her head for practicality, but still she leaves out a piece of her hair to be twisted and pinned in the custom that, had she been on Alderaan, would have signified to anyone who saw her that she was in mourning. 

As she does so she thinks of Han. It’s the only time she lets herself really think of him, this little stretch of time every day as she does her hair. She has found everything is much easier to deal with when she has a space of time, boxed in and separate, to relegate it to.

She wonders what he would think of this, she and Amilyn here on this mission, pretending they’re married. She thinks of his laugh and his hugs and how she hadn’t seen him in years—how had he not died she still would’ve been here with Amilyn—holds grief and rage like equal weights in her hands, at an impasse as they always are. And then she pins the braid in place and takes a deep breath and all those thoughts are gone. Back in their box where they will stay until the next time she does her hair. 

Like many things, compartmentalizing gets easier with practice. Lucky for her, she’s been practicing since she was nineteen, since she stood and watched her planet get destroyed in front of her eyes. 

Amilyn comes back in from her shower, dressed in clean utilitarian clothes, all in shades of purple of course, and when she smiles at Leia it’s like a warm wave of comfort crashing over her. 

“Shall we?” Leia says, holding her hand out to Amilyn. Amilyn nods, takes her hand, and together they step out into the late afternoon sun.

They join the others at the firepit and Leia is impressed to see a real fire blazing there. It’s rare for anyone to use real fire these days, but she figures it’s part of the holistic aesthetic Maynith is so obviously striving for here. She wonders wryly if they’ll be hunting their own food as well and then thinks of their richly dressed companions, of the amount of credits the trip cost. Not likely. 

All the way around the fire there are benches sized for two. As the first couple out they have their pick of spots and Leia strides to one about halfway around the side. 

Maynith is not there either, so it’s just the two of them on the little bench. Amilyn puts her arm around Leia’s shoulders so they fit better and they sit there quietly watching the flames flicker and the bright teal of the lake and the mountains beyond. There’s a light breeze around them and Amilyn is warm at her side and Leia feels—for one, perfect instant—completely at peace.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Leia asks, smiling up at Amilyn.

“Yes,” Amilyn replies, looking down at her with that soft smile on her face that Leia finds oh so comforting, “absolutely gorgeous.” 

Maynith joins them not much later with a smile and a big hello, and after them comes serving droids to ask what refreshments they’d like. Amilyn and Leia both choose sqa, a local pale green drink that is sweet and tart and fizzy, and soon enough everyone else has joined them around the fire and gotten drinks of their own and they are waiting patiently for Maynith to begin. 

“Welcome all of you,” Maynith says with dramatic flourish, “to the rest of your happily married life!” They grin wide at each of them before continuing. “Now you have all come here for reasons that are both completely unique and very much the same. On Talak’s Peak we will get to the root of your anxieties, your fears, and we will be renewed in the water of Dalin Lake,” they gesture to the lake behind them. “Now,” they continue, “let us go around the fire and introduce ourselves. Share a bit of what has brought you here today. We are all in this together, like a family, and so we can all share openly with one another. What is said here, stays here; what is learned here, leaves here.”

Ozann and Fenn are first, an Atoxian couple that run one of the resorts in the city. Their children have both recently married and left home and they have found their relationship floundering ever since. Then it’s Sarith and Miko who tell the group about their many attempts—and failures—at having a child and the stress it has put on their marriage. And then it’s their turn. Leia’s mind goes blank as she realises that she and Amilyn haven’t actually discussed any part of what their cover would be on this trip—obviously a mistake—and Leia has absolutely no idea what to say but then Amilyn is speaking and Leia just has to listen to whatever she chooses to say.

“I’m Amilyn Arrel and this is my wife Leia.” She half turns to Leia and gives her a sad smile before turning back to face the group, “we’ve been married for a few years now and we’ve had a rough couple of months recently.” She shrugs, “I can’t help but feel like we’re getting further and further apart, even when she’s in my arms.”

Damn she’s good, Leia thinks. Everyone gives sad hums of acknowledgement and the turn passes to Valo and Zae, and then finally to Darann and Kanith who are newlyweds and seem to mostly be in contention over the fact that Kanith is always working.

After that’s done, and after Maynith has given another little speech about what they’ll be doing in their fortnight here on the mountain—mostly therapist mumbo jumbo but Leia does think they mean well—they move to a large table set off to the side where the serving droids have set up an impressive meal. 

There’s more noodles and many vegetables and some meats that Leia doesn’t recognize. It’s delicious, though a few of the toppings toy with the upper edge of her tolerance for spiciness, and she’s glad to see Amilyn tuck in with as much gusto as she did their first evening on the planet. She doesn’t realise she’s staring at Amilyn until she turns towards her.

“Hm?” she asks and Leia just shakes her head.

“Sorry,” Leia says, and then, because of where they are and what they’re doing says a little louder, “just got caught up staring at my beautiful wife.”

Amilyn, to her credit, manages to blush and Leia would love to know how she did that on command, and she drops a kiss on Leia’s cheek before going back to her meal. Leia keeps one hand on Amilyn’s thigh and turns back to her own food, eats until she’s fully sated and then eats a little more because it’s just that good. 

They spend the rest of the evening chatting aimlessly with the rest of the group. They all seem to steer away from sensitive topics and instead discuss stars and mountains and other trips and all other sorts of frivolities that serve to let each of them forget, at least until tomorrow, the true reason for why they’re here. 

It’s late, almost 24:00, when they get back to their cabin, and Leia and Amilyn pour over the map they have of the area, finding their meeting place. It’s not too far, by the look of things, but still Leia wants to give them more than enough time to get there, in case the path is treacherous or some obstacle that hasn’t made it onto the map is in their way. They decide together that they will wait for an hour for everyone to be settled before they sneak out.

The site is dark and silent when they creep out of their cabin, walking slowly towards the edge of the woods. Leia takes deep breaths, thinks of the Force, thinks of what little she had had time to learn from Luke before he disappeared. She feels the power of it, flowing through her, and lets it guide her steps in the darkness, holding Amilyn’s hand the whole time to guide her through. When they’ve made it a fair distance from the camp Amilyn turns on the glowrod she brought with her and they make their way through thick underbrush to the point Lando had mentioned. 

It ends up only taking about half an hour before they step out of the forest and find the falls, thundering loud and filling the air with a faint mist, and then the little cave around the side that Lando’s message had mentioned. They are early and so Leia does her best to make herself comfortable on the rough stone floor, leaning against the wall. 

It’s surprisingly cold. Leia had dressed for some chilly weather but not to this extent. She’s shivering, her arms wrapped around herself, doesn’t want to complain because she doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but then Amilyn is there, setting herself up close beside her and tugging Leia into her side so they can share warmth; with Amilyn’s arms around her she does begin to feel better.

“Do you have that stone I gave you?” Amilyn asks quietly.

“Of course,” Leia says, pulls it out of her shirt and holds it out. Amilyn can’t see it of course—they’ve turned the glowrod off so as not to attract any notice—so Leia grabs one of Amilyn’s hands, leads it to the stone.

“Good,” Amilyn says, and Leia can feel her pulling something out of her shirt too. “I’ll confess I didn’t just give you this stone for its beauty.”

And then Leia can feel the stone begin to vibrate, both stones because that must be what Amilyn has in her hand and its vibrating too and then she feels warmth, emanating off the stones. It warms her fingers first and then goes further, warming all of her. 

“Rathalayan firestone,” Amilyn says quietly, “when two pieces are in close proximity they vibrate and give off warmth.”

“I guess I shouldn’t tease you for your weird obsessions,” Leia laughs, “they do manage to keep getting me out of trouble.”

The stones’ warmth doesn’t spread far, but it’s enough that if they stay pressed close together it does the job. They stay until their chronometers read 00:30, looking expectantly towards the cave’s entrance at even the smallest noises, but no Lando.

“I think it’s been long enough,” Leia says, “we’ll try again tomorrow.”

She groans as she stands up, her joints creaking, and she can hear Amilyn doing the same beside her.

“I think we might be getting too old for all this sneaking around,” Amilyn says. “Isn’t the point of being in command that we send the younger fitter ones out to do this sort of thing?” She’s teasing, of course, Leia knows that. So she pokes Amilyn in the side, tells her she knows she’s having the time of her life, absolutely adores the throaty laugh she gets in response. “Guilty as charged,” she says, still laughing

“Who knows,” Leia teases, “maybe you’ll see snow owls.”

“Oh,” Amilyn’s tone turns serious and if Leia didn’t know her so well she’d never be able to tell she was joking, “I don’t think Atox has snow owls.”

Leia reaches for her hand, almost by instinct now, and they thread their way back down through the woods to the campsite and into their cabin, going as slowly and quietly as possible once they reach the clearing. They get changed into sleep clothes quickly, crawl into bed, and Leia curls into Amilyn’s side on instinct now. She doesn’t know how this became so familiar so quickly—lying with her head on Amilyn’s chest, with Amilyn’s arms around her—but it is and she cannot find it anything but comforting. 

Leia is a strange mixture of disappointed and exhilarated and she finds she cannot fall asleep immediately. She lies in Amilyn’s arms, relishes in the feeling of Amilyn playing with her hair—and still her heart swells at Amilyn’s obvious worry, her reserve about touching Leia’s hair, as if she doesn’t know how important she is to Leia—focuses on matching her breaths with the rise and fall of Amilyn’s chest.

“Did I ever tell you,” she says after a long moment, “that Han was still married when we got married?”

She doesn’t really know she’s going to say it until she has, and she never talks about Han, never really did before… and now… But here, in the darkness, the words come easily and she can say things that in daylight would wither in her throat.

“No!” Amilyn half sits up in her shock. “What?”

“Oh,” Leia chuckles, pats her shoulder to get her to settle back down, “not truly married, but, well, you know how we got married on Endor right after the second Death Star was blown up?”

“Mmhmm,” Amilyn lies back down, gets back to the soothing work of running her hands through Leia’s hair.

“Well, that was all well and good until, oh gosh, it must have been, I don’t know, a few months later? We finally found time, you remember of course, how crazy things were back then, but we managed to find the time to be officially, properly married and the clerk told us we couldn’t because Han was already married.” Leia smiles into Amilyn’s shoulder at the memory, “I’m telling you I almost throttled him right then and there.”

“I don’t blame you,” there’s a steel in Amilyn’s tone Leia doesn’t hear very often.

“Well we looked into it and I guess, years and years ago Han and Lando got married.”

“The Lando we’re meeting?” Amilyn says.

“The one and only,” Leia replies. “He and Han, oh when they got together, well, they would swindle anything out of anyone, and at some point they got married for some cockamamie scheme and they forgot to get divorced. The best part is, back on Endor Lando was the one who married us.” 

“Wow,” Amilyn says. “I’m amazed Han lived long enough to figure out the truth.”

“Me too,” Leia admits, “I think I shouted the whole way from the clerk’s office to the Falcon.” She laughs, “some passersby got an earful I’m sure.”

“So they were only fake married?” Amilyn asks.

“Well,” Leia traces her fingers over the soft fabric of Amilyn’s nightgown, idly drawing patterns over her stomach, “the marriage was fake. And whatever relationship Han and Lando had it ended long before Han and I ever met.”

“Are you sure it’s proper,” Amilyn says then, humour lacing her tone, “to bring your new wife to meet your ex-husband’s ex-husband?”

Leia has to laugh, a good proper laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation. 

“I’m not sure there’s a protocol for secret meetings on mountain tops,” Leia replies finally. “Too bad Threepio isn’t here, I’m sure he would’ve managed to find some custom somewhere to guide us.” She laughs as Amilyn groans at the thought of it. “The two of them, though, Han and Lando. The stories I could tell…”

And she does. Stories of the four of them, the five of them when Luke was there, too. Enjoys being able to talk about Han, about her past, without sympathetic murmurs and sad looks. She wants to remember this, remember the laughter and the love, remember a time when she was young and full of energy and hope. And of course, of course, Amilyn lets her.


	4. but the changing of winds, and the way waters flow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much to everyone for your patience!!! if you follow me on social media you've probably seen that i've been crazy busy recently with school and just started a new job.  
> i am trying really hard to update this every week or two and a huge thank you to everyone who commented, y'all the real mvps reminding me i don't do this for naught! fingers crossed that life gets vaguely less crazy soon.

The next morning dawns not so much bright as early. Amilyn yawns as she opens her eyes. It’s not quite 6 and through the window to her left she can see that the sky still holds much of the predawn darkness. She didn’t get much sleep, after getting back to the cabin she and Leia stayed up late talking. Or rather, Leia talked with an openness Amilyn had never known from her and Amilyn hung on every word. It was absolutely worth the heaviness that now drags at her eyelids. She would gladly forfeit all the sleep in the world to give Leia the chance to open up in safety. Maynith had asked everyone to meet them at the lake at 6, ready to swim, and Amilyn has been resolutely trying not to think about Leia in bathing togs ever since. The moment for not thinking about it, though, ends abruptly as she looks up and sees Leia standing on the other side of the room, facing away from the bed, dressed in a black one-piece.

It’s plain and utilitarian, not exactly the sort of thing that is generally thought to be sexy but on Leia it’s enough to give Amilyn a heart attack. It’s not so much the suit itself as the skin it reveals, the skin Amilyn has never seen—or at least never seen before yesterday when Leia came out wearing nothing but a towel and Amilyn thought she might just die right then and there—and now Amilyn has a chance to look at it, can’t help but let her eyes roam over Leia’s body. There’s a mark on her upper right arm, a scar from a blaster bolt, Amilyn thinks. And a few other smaller scars mark her arms and legs, the evidence of years spent on the frontlines of battle. There are stretch marks, too, their silvery lines making a beautiful pattern, interspersed with the dimpling of cellulite, all coming together, swirling into an image that is more beautiful than anything Amilyn has ever seen. It is obviously not the kind of commercialized sexuality that comes in holovids, but it is real, concrete. It is a beauty that is rooted in the unabashed reality of a body that has seen much of life and is all the sexier for that which some would call flaws. Amilyn’s thoughts immediately turn prurient and she finds herself imagining kissing her way up those legs, loving every inch of that skin.

Amilyn realizes with a start that she has been staring at Leia for far, far too long. She shakes her head, thanks her lucky stars that Leia didn’t notice, and busies herself with gathering her own bathing togs (a suit not dissimilar from Leia’s, save for its bright purple colour) and heading to the ‘fresher to change. After she is done, she and Leia leave the cabin and make their way to the edge of the lake, holding hands as usual.

They arrive at much the same time as everyone else, and Amilyn spies a few others yawning, is glad to see she is not the only exhausted one there. Maynith is already in the water and they beckon to everyone to join them. Amilyn expects the water to be frigid, especially this early in the morning, before it has had time to be warmed by the sun, but when she tentatively dips a toe in she is surprised to find it warm. It is, she finds as she wades into the lake, the kind of warm that borders on too hot on first contact, and then ebbs to a wondrously relaxing temperature that perfectly soothes her sore muscles.

“I could get used to this,” she murmurs conspiratorially to Leia, realizes after she’s said it that the statement applies to much more than just Dalin lake.

“Me too,” Leia whispers back, and Amilyn’s heart stutters at the statement. Obviously, though, Leia is simply referring to the water.

Maynith instructs them all to face their spouses, to clasp their hands and match their breaths until they are completely in sync. Then, they ask them all to move closer to their spouses, to stand cheek to cheek with them. Which, for Amilyn and Leia, is more cheek to forehead.

“Feel their energy flow through you,” Maynith says, “Feel how close you feel when there is nothing between you but still waters.” It’s a nice sentiment, but all Amilyn can concentrate on is Leia’s bare legs pressed up against her own, Leia’s breasts pressed against her, Leia’s breath ghosting over her neck. She cannot focus on being calm because her brain is running amok with thoughts of what this would be like if Leia were actually her wife, though if she were, they wouldn’t be here in the lake in the first place because there’s no way Amilyn would’ve left their cabin before she had kissed every centimetre of Leia’s bare skin. She needs to stop thinking about that, she really really needs to stop, and with considerable effort she tunes back in to what Maynith is saying, tries to listen diligently as they instruct the group to think about their histories together, the pasts and the futures constructed by virtue of their love, support, closeness. Amilyn thinks of Leia from her first introduction into her life—her immediate interest in the young princess of Alderaan—to the present. The strength, the kindness, the stubbornness that have coursed through her life thanks to Leia. Her quickness to both anger and laughter. Above all, her goodness and her grit.

“I’d like you to think about one word with which you would describe your partner in past, present, and future,” Maynith says. Amilyn thinks, ‘Hope’.

By the time they get out of the lake, Amilyn’s fingers have gone wrinkled from the water. She and Leia go back to their cabin to dry off and change—both into simple and comfortable outfits—and then head back to the fire pit from last night for a sumptuous breakfast. First the droids bring out tea and caf to drink. The tea is nothing like the Gatalentan offerings Amilyn is used to, it is smokier and heavier, a little harder to get used to, but she finds after a few sips she quite likes the taste. To eat there are bowls of steaming hot porridge made from an assortment of grains and topped with strange fruits. Amilyn finds them delicious and filling. She’ll miss the food when they leave Atox, that’s for sure.

After they’ve all eaten their fill, Maynith leads the group to one of the cabins Amilyn hadn’t noticed previously, larger than the rest and set a ways back. Inside there is a bright airy room with a small circle of pillows on the ground in the center. Maynith invites them all to be seated. When they’re all comfortable they lead the group in breathing exercises, encouraging them to follow patterns of relaxing thought that Amilyn recognizes as fairly universal meditation techniques. It’s not nearly as relaxing as skyfaring but it’s not bad and she easily lets herself drift into that space between consciousness and everything beyond.

“Now,” Maynith says, “I’m going to ask you all some questions that I’d like you to think on and then discuss. Together we can find the commonality between our experiences and offer wisdom to each other from each of our lives.”

Amilyn and Leia both stay silent at first, content to listen to the others speak. When Maynith asks them all about children, Leia offers up Poe and Finn in response, speaks warmly of how proud she is of them and Amilyn smiles and nods along. Then Maynith asks about communication, invites Amilyn to share and Amilyn cannot refuse lest she draw attention to herself and Leia.

“We have never been big talkers,” she says, casting a sad smile down at Leia, “but it has been worse recently, terser. Leia has been under a considerable amount of pressure at work as well as having experienced some loss in her personal life and I worry that she is not talking to anyone about it.” It is always easier to keep lies as close to the truth as possible and Amilyn just hopes Leia doesn’t hold it against her.

“Do you feel you can’t open up to Amilyn, Leia?” Maynith asks.

“I think it can be hard,” Leia says haltingly. “I think sometimes if you begin talking and thinking about things you cannot stop, so it is often easier to not bring them up in the first place.”

She sounds sincere enough that Amilyn knows she must be pulling from the truth as well, and her words strike Amilyn hard. Leia has been under so much pressure recently and she hates to think of her simply bottling up everything inside. It makes her even gladder that Leia had chosen to speak about Han last night. If Amilyn can in any way facilitate Leia dealing with her emotions when she is ready to, she will do it. The conversation moves on and Amilyn and Leia are more a part of it than they were previously, sharing little fragments in their lives reformed into supposed relationship issues.

The hardest part of it all for Amilyn, truly, is trying to pretend that she would be anything other than enduringly ecstatic if Leia were her wife. Having to act as though she would not wake up every morning with the singular goal of loving Leia with every bit of herself. It was the biggest reason she never fully warmed to Han, to be honest. She liked him, of course, he was a good man. And she knows he loved Leia, she was always able to see just how much he loved Leia, but she could never understand how he could choose to get in a ship and fly across the galaxy when he could be at home with Leia in his arms.

After the group therapy, they are free to do as they please. Maynith, it seems, will be doing one-on-one interviews with the couples as well, spending one afternoon with each couple and as it is not yet Leia and Amilyn’s turn, they have nowhere they need to be until the evening meal. They head back to their cabin and contact Poe and Finn to ensure that things are going smoothly back in town.

“Everything seems okay,” Poe says, his voice distorted slightly by the static, “the ship’s ready to go at any time, but it doesn’t look like we’ll need it. We haven’t found any evidence of the Atoxians being any less than completely peaceful.”

“There’s no evidence of any First Order presence either,” Finn adds, “hopefully it stays that way.”

They sign off with instructions to keep their eyes open and then it’s just Amilyn and Leia and hours of free time.

Leia yawns and stretches. “Man I’m tired,” she says.

“Me too,” Amilyn agrees, can’t stop herself from yawning too.

“You know,” Leia says slowly, “there’s absolutely nothing keeping us from taking a nap.”

Amilyn grins, “that’s a very good point.” She lets Leia lead the way to the bed, pulls a knitted cover over them both and falls asleep almost immediately.

That night they sneak out to the falls again, dressed warmer this time, but not so warm that they can’t still benefit from the heat of the firestone so once more they sit close together on the rough stone floor, quietly existing together in the dark. If Amilyn’s honest, this may just be her favourite moment of all. It holds none of the internal conflict that their public displays of affection bring, nor the despair she feels with Leia’s body pressed up against her in bed—both so close and so far from what she wishes. Here, instead, there is merely comfort, peace. A togetherness amplified by the pressure of the dark night all around them. Amilyn will be very sorry to see this go.

Lando does not show up that night either, and after half an hour they make their way back to their cabin without incident. Again before they fall asleep, Leia begins to talk about her past, this time stories of Ben when he was young. The little things, mostly, the time he fell and skinned his knee, the first time he used the force to levitate one of his stuffed animals, the sorts of stories that are never monumental enough to be told, but which all parents hold dear.

Amilyn feels incredibly honoured that Leia has chosen to share these with her, and she encourages her when she pauses with little hums of interest, a soft chuckle where it’s appropriate. Through it all she strokes Leia’s hair, trying to give her as much support and comfort as she can manage. The sadness in Leia’s voice is almost impossible to bear, and Amilyn wishes not for the first time (and certainly not for the last) that she could wave a magic wand and take away all the pain in Leia’s life.

It’s late when they finally fall asleep and Amilyn is glad that the past years of fighting have made her used to running on little sleep. She can sleep when they’re done, she thinks as she always does. She can sleep when the First Order has been taken down and peace has been returned to the galaxy.

The next morning starts much as the last one did, with the whole group going for a swim in the nearby lake. It’s relaxing—almost too relaxing, as Amilyn fights to stay awake—and then there is breakfast and then more group therapy. This time, two of the other couples dominate the discussion, and Amilyn is happy for that. The less time she has to spend spinning lies about her supposed life the more she can hold firmly onto the fact that none of this is real.

There’s something almost insidious about it, really, the environment and the play-acting. Amilyn never expected that at any moment she would forget the reality of the situation, and she doesn’t, not really. But still, something about pretending to be Leia’s wife is affecting her more than she thought, giving her fractions of a second here or there where everything feels much much too real. She’s determined to not let it be a problem.

So, instead of taking a nap with Leia, Amilyn excuses herself and goes for a walk through the woods. She ends up finding a tall sturdy tree and decides to climb to the tip of it. Once she’s in the branches, high above the ground, she feels a bit like she’s skyfaring again. There’s something innately cleansing about simply being high in the sky, something Amilyn always forgets the full impact of until she’s there again. She breathes in deep, lets it out slowly, falls into a pattern of meditating that has been a part of her life since she was a young child.

Gatlenta is a calm world and while Amilyn always rebelled against that, always fought against the strictures of society, so confining to her when she wanted to be free among the stars, there are parts of her upbringing she maintains. Meditation is one of those.

As she sits in the tree and lets her mind clear she finds herself returning back to a solid center. Yes, she loves Leia. She loves Leia more than is ever imaginable, but Leia does not love her back and Amilyn knows this—knows it well, despite the events of this trip—and she also knows that Leia’s friendship is a gift. She reminds herself of this, reminds herself of who she is, of why she is here. By the time she’s climbing down the large, rough trunk and making her way back to the cabins, her stomach is growling with hunger and her sense of self is returned to normal. She sneaks back to the cabin without anyone seeing that she was wandering about alone, though she’s not sure if those rules apply quite as strictly up here, finds Leia waiting for her inside.

“Good walk?” Leia asks.

“Great,” Amilyn says. “Good nap?”

“Not bad,” Leia replies, “though I think I’ve gotten used to using you as a pillow, felt a little strange to be sleeping alone.” She takes Amilyn’s hand and they head out of the cabin and Amilyn breathes, tries to keep the serenity of the past few hours clear in her mind. Still, everything was a lot easier in theory, at the top of a tree, without Leia’s hand in hers, without Leia telling her how she likes to curl around her while sleeping.

That night comes and goes without any sight of Lando. As do the day and night after that. It’s only been a few days, but Amilyn is already beginning to wonder if he’s ever going to show up at this rate. She wonders why he gave Leia such a wide span of days, can’t help but be a bit suspicious of it all. She hopes desperately that it’s not a completely futile mission they’re on, or worse, a trap. She feels for her blaster pistol, strapped securely to her skin, and is somewhat comforted by its presence.

The next day when it comes time for group therapy, Maynith hands them each a datapad.

“Today,” they say, “we are going to create a Qerath. It’s a, um, heart map is likely the best translation for those of you who aren’t from here.” They nod at Valo and Zae and Amilyn and Leia. “It’s something all Atoxians work on before they get married, but I’ve found it’s sometimes helpful to revisit them later on in a relationship.” They explain how they work, how the screens of the datapads are split into three sections, each a different colour, and on each they can create icons that are named in a legend. One section is for romantic loves, one for friends, one for family. The closest an icon is to the center, the more dear the person is to you. “Qerath are very private,” Maynith says, “we never share them with anyone else. I encourage you to be as honest as you can, I assure you these will always remain confidential.” Then they leave everyone to head back to their cabins and work on them.

Amilyn finds it to be an enlightening experience. She adds in her family members first, her parents and grandparents and a few aunts and uncles. It’s an interesting exercise to place them in order of importance and she finds herself surprised in places when she listens to what her heart has to say on the matter. When it comes to friends, there are only a few people to be listed. They are all members of The Resistance, too, and Amilyn can’t be too surprised at that; she doesn’t remember the last time she spoke to someone outside of their band of fighters. The galaxy is much too fractious now, there is no simply being friends with people who in any way support the First Order. Things have gone beyond mere differences in opinion and Amilyn cannot ally herself with anyone who does not care enough about freedom to fight.

And so, her friends section holds Ematt and Ackbar and a few of the higher ups from the Ninka. Not many people, that’s for sure, but Amilyn has never made friends easily. The section on romantic love is even more sparse. Incredibly sparse, actually, as it holds only one icon: Leia. She has Leia twice on this chart, in fact, isn’t sure if it’s okay to have one person on two different sections but she has gone ahead and done so. Leia is listed as her best friend and also as the only person Amilyn has ever loved.

It’s no surprise, really, but seeing that icon there on a blank field makes Amilyn face the singularity of that love more wholly than she has before. She had once told Leia that only being attracted to humanoid males was limiting, she has to laugh at herself, making comments like that when she had limited herself to one person for life. Still, after having loved Leia she knows she never could love anyone else.

“Are you done?” Leia asks a few minutes later.

“I am,” Amilyn replies. “You?”

“Yup.” She grins then. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“They’re confidential,” Amilyn’s voice gets breathless saying that as she tries to mask her terror at the thought of Leia seeing her Qerath.

“For the Atoxians,” Leia argues.

“I just don’t think it would be right,” Amilyn says, grateful that she has an excuse to not share her chart, to not bring up the myriad questions Leia would surely have upon seeing it. She imagines the shock, the disgust or perhaps the pity that would forever tinge their interactions from that point on and knows she can never ever let Leia near it. Thankfully, Leia drops the matter, suggests a nap instead, and to that Amilyn is quick to acquiesce.

That night they are making their way out of their cabin, following the now-familiar path, are almost at the edge of the woods, when they hear a voice behind them.

“Who’s there?” It’s an Atoxian, that’s for sure, and Amilyn’s mind goes blank. How the hell are they supposed to explain this? Before she can think of anything, Leia is moving, grabbing Amilyn and pulling her towards her as she moves backwards until her back hits a nearby tree. She pulls Amilyn’s head down to hers and in a split second Amilyn understands Leia’s plan. She goes along willingly, starts kissing Leia in earnest, puts a hand under Leia’s thigh when she hitches one leg up over Amilyn’s hip.

The kiss is incredible, and that should not be what Amilyn is concentrating on right now because they are very much about to be caught, but it _is_ and every time Leia’s tongue swipes against hers, Amilyn’s knees buckle a little. She’s supporting herself by leaning in against her, has the hand that isn’t on Leia’s thigh on Leia’s waist and she doesn’t know when her fingers dipped between Leia’s shirt and pants to stroke over Leia’s bare skin but it happened at some point and Leia’s skin is insanely soft and Amilyn is so totally, utterly kriffed.

They continue kissing, acting like they can’t hear anything but each other’s sighs and moans—and Leia is moaning, deep and throaty, the sound of it making Amilyn’s head spin—until the light of a glowrod shines on them, and then Amilyn half turns around, drops her hold on Leia’s thigh, does her best to look shamefaced.

“Leia, Amilyn,” it’s Maynith who’s found them, and they’re obviously relieved that it’s just them.

“Hi Maynith,” Amilyn says weakly.

“I wasn’t expecting you two to be out of bed at this hour,” they say, their tone chiding.

“Sorry Maynith,” Leia says, “I convinced Amilyn to go for a walk and then, well,” she bites her lip, manages to look both innocent and lustful all at once, “I just couldn’t keep my hands off her.”

“Well,” Maynith says, “at least it’s obvious sexual dysfunction isn’t a problem the two of you are dealing with. I’ll, um, let you get decent but perhaps keep it to the cabin next time?”

“Of course,” Amilyn agrees as Leia apologizes again and then Maynith is moving along and Amilyn and Leia are sagging against each other with sighs of relief. “That was close,” Amilyn whispers.

“Yeah,” Leia agrees. “Sorry about,” she gestures between them, “it was the only thing I could think of.”

“It’s fine,” Amilyn says. And it is fine, at least it’s fine in the way that Leia meant it. Fine in that Amilyn is not offended or horrified by Leia’s actions. It’s not so fine in other ways. Because now that Amilyn knows what it’s like to kiss Leia, to really properly _kiss_ Leia she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to go back to her regularly scheduled life of not kissing her. It’s as if someone offered her three quick bites of the most delicious cake in the universe and then told her she could never have any ever again.

As she continues the walk to the cave with Leia at her side, all Amilyn can think about is the kiss. The best kiss she’s ever had, honestly. Thinks about Leia’s lips and tongue and her skin, wonders if she’ll ever be able to think about anything else. And then she thinks about how she’ll never get to experience any of it ever again. It’s perverse to wish for them to get caught again, it really is, but a tiny sliver of Amilyn can’t help but want just that, can’t help but want any excuse whatsoever to get to kiss Leia like that again.


	5. this particular diamond was extra special

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! may the 4th be with you!!  
> thank you so much for your continued interest in this fic and patience with me, unfortunately my personal life went to hell and then finals hit so my life is just now getting back to normal. I'm a crazy person who's doing summer school which starts soon but I should have more writing time than I did. I really love Leia and Amilyn and this fic and I wanna give it, and you, my best.

It has been five days and for the life of her Leia cannot stop thinking about the kiss. _The_ kiss. There have been other kisses before and since, short little pecks here and there as needed to keep up their façade with everyone else, but none have come close to the kiss that night. The one she initiated, pulling Amilyn towards her in a desperate attempt to keep them from getting caught.

The thing is that Amilyn is an incredibly good kisser. She probably should’ve expected that, but the truth is that she had never really considered it before. She had never given a moment’s thought to how Amilyn might kiss, how she might like to be kissed. And now, well, now she knows, and her life is split into a dichotomy: pre- and post-kiss, the answer to the question of Amilyn’s abilities firmly answered and the events of those precious few moments stuck in her mind on constant replay.

She remembers the softness of Amilyn’s lips, the press of her body up against hers, the goosebumps elicited by Amilyn’s fingers stroking against her bare skin. She remembers the moans she couldn’t quite believe were coming from her own mouth—she has yet to determine if they were mere playacting for Maynith’s sake. Most of all, she remembers her arousal, sharp and keen, and the wrench of disappointment she felt as they separated.

She sits beside Amilyn at breakfast, acutely aware of the way their thighs are pressed together, sips at her caf and tries to tell herself it was merely a physiological response, a result of not having been kissed properly in years, that she would’ve felt the same no matter who was kissing her.

Still, she thinks of if she had been here with Poe instead, as he’d suggested, and she can’t even fully imagine kissing Poe, let alone enjoying it. A fact which leaves an interpretation that Leia does not want to confront.

She breathes in deep, begs her mind to pay attention to the conversation at hand. She cannot afford to be this distracted, not here, not now, with so much at stake. Kanith and Sarith are discussing the mythology of Dalin Lake, a legitimately interesting topic, and Leia is happy to listen to what they have to say.

Apparently, Dalin Lake used to be visited on religious pilgrimages, thousands of years ago, before Atox was founded, when the planet was home to a few nomadic tribes and wild winds and not much else. The tales told of Dalin Lake supposedly healing great ills, both physical and mental, a sort of water of eternal life believed in by many.

“The history of the lake was forgotten,” Maynith chimes in, nodding, “for hundreds of years. I found it while studying in the archives as a young man and when I began this company I knew that Dalin Lake would be the perfect place for my camp.”

Leia idly wonders as they finish with their meal if any of those mystical properties may be real, if the water is somehow imbued with the force in a way that can enact real change in people. It’s possible, she’s sure, though she doesn’t quite understand how such a thing would work. For a moment, fleeting and powerful, she wishes Luke were around so she could ask him. It’s the sort of thing he would know, the sort of Jedi knowledge he was so excited to sit down and learn once the empire was bested. All that knowledge, seemingly lost, that he had so solely devoted himself to ferreting out. She lets herself miss him in that moment, selfishly hopes that Rey will bring him back to them soon. Selfish because she does not miss him as a Jedi Master or a Resistance General, but rather as her brother. As someone to let her know that everything will be okay. Still, it’s been years since she last saw him and she doesn’t really know what it will be like to see him again, doesn’t know if she can marry her knowledge of him as a loving brother with the fact that he ran away, hid himself far from them all, and didn’t return no matter how much peril any of them were in, didn’t even come back when Han died.

Amilyn squeezes her hand all of a sudden and Leia looks up at her in surprise.

“You okay?” Amilyn asks, soft and gentle. Leia’s heart contracts at the worry in her tone, at the care it betrays.

“Fine,” Leia replies with a slight smile, notices then that they are the last people left at the table.

“You looked like you were a world away,” Amilyn says.

“I was.” She shrugs, “I was thinking of Luke, wherever he is now.”

Amilyn just nods, leans in to bump her shoulder against Leia’s in a gesture of support that means more than Leia could ever say.

She gets to her feet, waits for Amilyn to do the same, and then they’re following everyone else to the large cabin for group therapy, their hands clasped and their arms brushing as they walk. It feels so right that Leia almost wishes they could keep walking like that forever.

Group therapy is fairly quiet, dominated mostly by Ozann and Fenn whose problems, Leia thinks privately, are barely problems at all, as they seem on the whole to be happy but unsure about what to do without their children around. Go on vacation, she wants to tell them, but she doesn’t.

After they’ve eaten lunch, Maynith lets Amilyn and Leia know that today is their day for one on one therapy. They bring them to the back area of the cabin where they hold group therapy, ask Amilyn to wait on the cushions in the main room, and bring Leia into the back room. It’s small, holds only a few plush chairs and a small desk. Maynith does not sit behind the desk as Leia had expected, instead they make themselves comfortable in a high-backed armchair and gesture for Leia to do the same.

“Now Leia,” Maynith begins, smiling benignly at her, “the purpose of these one on one sessions is to freely discuss the more personal aspects of your relationship. Everything said here is, of course, completely confidential. I want you to feel free to tell me absolutely anything. Even something you wouldn’t say in front of your wife.” They grin wider, “in fact, I am considered quite rare in Atoxian society for speaking to couples individually instead of as a pair. It was quite controversial when I first began this business.”

“Of course,” Leia replies, nodding. It’s easy to believe that the Atoxian’s insistent need for coupling would extend to all areas of life.

“From what you and Amilyn have said in our group sessions, you’ve experienced some loss in your life recently. I was wondering if you’d be willing to tell me more about that.”

“Right,” Leia says, she likes that Maynith’s wasting no time getting to the heart of matters, “well Amilyn is not my first spouse. I was married before, a long time ago. My husband, my ex-husband,” she corrects herself, “he passed away quite recently.”

“Recently?” Maynith presses.

“A few weeks ago. Like I said, it’s been years.” She shrugs, “I hadn’t even seen him in, oh half a decade or more, until a few days before his death.”

“I’ve often found that distance has very little effect on feelings.”

“Mmmm, well, be that as it may I still… Well like I said, he and I have been apart a long time.”

“But he was the love of your life, wouldn’t you say?”

“I certainly thought so,” Leia says, tries for flippancy but doesn’t quite make it. She had loved Han more than she thought it was ever possible to love another person.

“And now you feel guilty,” Maynith says, “for enjoying your time with Amilyn when he’s gone.”

Leia is about to shake her head, to protest, to tell Maynith that she’d still be with Amilyn even if Han were still alive, but she realizes with a start that they’re right. “How did—yes. You’re right, I do.”

“Hmm,” Maynith takes a moment before they continue, “I think one of the most interesting things I’ve learned in this job is that the truth of a relationship can be best seen in the in-betweens.”

Leia doesn’t really know where they’re going with this, but she nods politely and hopes they’ll make their point clear.

“People say many things, but the truth of their feelings, of their connection, is evident in the way they act when they think nobody’s watching. I guess my skill has always lain in the fact that I pay attention to those moments. What I mean to say by this, and I hope you’ll forgive the roundabout way of saying it, is that I’ve been watching you and Amilyn and it is abundantly clear to me how much the two of you love each other.”

Leia’s relief is sharp, she had begun to worry as Maynith was speaking that they had been able to tell that they were just pretending.

“You so obviously adore each other, I see many couples in my job, but I rarely get the chance to see soulmates, the love of a lifetime, I mean, it’s a gift. A gift you and your wife have been blessed with.”

“And you can tell that just by watching us?” Leia had no idea that she and Amilyn were this good at acting, but Maynith’s certainty is beginning to make her think twice about even that.

“Oh yes. It’s abundantly clear. Very few people are lucky enough to have one such love in their life, you should feel very special for having had two. You just told me how much you loved your husband, a love that is obviously only met by how much you love Amilyn. And so, you grieve your husband because you love him. That’s what grief is, after all, isn’t it? Love that has no place to go.”

“I guess I didn’t think of it like that,” Leia says. “But yes. I…” she pauses, takes a deep breath, “I guess I felt like because he’d been gone so long I didn’t really have the right to grieve him. After all, he wasn’t my husband anymore, was he?” It’s more honest than she meant to be, the naked truth pouring out of her mouth before she could think twice about it and she understands now how Maynith has been able to make this into a successful career.

“I don’t think that’s true at all,” Maynith says gently, “there is nothing wrong with loving him still, no matter how long it had been, unless you are trying to force yourself to choose between loving him and loving Amilyn. There is a saying we have here on Atox, we say ‘love is not the bucket, love is the well’. Love is not a finite resource Leia, I would hate for you to think of it as that. You can love two people at once, and the fact that you do should be seen as a gift, not a curse.”

Leia smiles at them, even though in the moment she feels distinctly like crying. Still, she holds back her tears and manages to speak instead, “that, well, that does make a lot of sense. I think you might have a future in this whole couples’ therapy thing,” she jokes dryly.

Maynith laughs. “I’m glad you think so.”

“It’s been, well, I haven’t really had a chance to slow down since he passed away. My works been very busy these days.”

“I’m glad you’ve had a moment to relax then. You deserve it. Let me ask you one last thing, do you think your husband would begrudge you your happiness?”

“No,” Leia admits. “No, he wouldn’t. Han loved me,” she can finally say his name, feels less of a barrier to thinking of him than she had before, “he’d want me to be happy.”

“And happiness and sadness are not mutually exclusive. So while you grieve him, while you are sad that he is not here, you can still be happy to be with Amilyn. Does that make sense?”

“More than you might expect,” Leia replies. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“I think I need to go for a walk,” Leia admits. She needs clean air and space to breathe. She needs to be alone.

“There’s a lovely path around the lake,” Maynith says. “Maybe while I talk with Amilyn you can spend your time there.” They reach over to the desk, pull something out of the drawer and hand it over. It’s a long necklace with a dark wooden pendant threaded with silk. “I’m not sure if you knew this,” Maynith explains, “but the reason we as a people always move as pairs is more than mere custom. We believe that a single person is vulnerable to the spirits when walking alone. This will protect you while you walk.”

“Thank you,” Leia says. “I—I hope this isn’t rude, but you don’t…” she stops, realizes that she doesn’t quite know how to phrase her question.

“You wonder why I am alone? Many do. My spouse passed away, many years ago now, and I’ve not fallen in love again since.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you. I miss them every day, I’m sure you understand that.”

Leia nods. “I’ll send Amilyn in on my way out.”

“Thank you.”

Once she’s outside Leia takes a moment to stretch. She feels sore, like she had been doing something much more exerting than sitting in a cushioned chair and talking. She finds the path that Maynith had mentioned quite easily. It’s a dirt trail leading through trees all the way around the lake, at times dipping out past the treeline to where the water laps at the shore. As she walks, Leia concentrates on her steps and her breathing, working to clear and settle her mind.

After a while, she slowly lets herself think of her conversation with Maynith and all that had transpired. She is still surprised at their astuteness. She had had no idea that the main emotion troubling her mind was guilt. Guilt, she turns the concept of it over in her mind and forces herself to confront what guilt means. It doesn’t make sense that she would feel guilt to Han about hanging out with her best friend. The kiss seeps back into her mind, unbidden, and Leia is stopped in her tracks by the force of emotion that wells up in her all of a sudden. ‘It is abundantly clear to me how much the two of you love each other,’ Maynith had said. Leia had thought it was merely a credit to their acting abilities but now she’s not nearly as sure.

The love of a lifetime, that’s what Maynith had called it. Maynith who was so very perceptive about everything else, who has devoted their life to the matter of relationships.

Leia sits down on a rock at the water’s edge and watches the waves as she realizes what this means. The most incredible part is that it makes so much sense. She loves Amilyn. Loves her not solely as a friend but also as something else. She desires Amilyn, wants to be with her, wants—as shocking as it seems—to have what they have been pretending to have over the past days. She thinks of that kiss again, finally recognizes her feelings as naked want and desire, is amazed that she hadn’t seen them as such immediately.

“I love her,” she whispers the words, feels the weight and the truth of them in equal measure. “I’m in love with Amilyn Holdo.”

She remembers a moment from when they were teenagers, how she had told Amilyn she was strictly attracted to humanoid men and Amilyn had called that limiting. What would she say if Leia were to come back all these years later and tell her she was right, that she had been limiting herself without even knowing it.

But then, there’s the problem. She has never had any indication from Amilyn that she wants to be anything other than friends and kriff! This is not the time or the place to have this revelation, let alone to have that conversation. What is she to do? Tell Amilyn that she is madly in love with her and wants nothing more than to kiss her like she had the other night, over and over again with no end?

That would make everything enjoyably awkward.

Leia sighs, dips her hands in the lake and washes her face with the warm water, and then she heads back to their cabin. When she gets there, it is empty, and Leia takes a moment to look at her Qerath at the icons there. She looks at the sector for romance, sees the two icons—one for Han right near the core, another for Kier further back. On impulse she takes an extra token, keys it the same way as the Amilyn icon on the friendship field, and places it up near Han. It fits there perfectly. It feels right. She sits staring at it for some time, and then she hears footsteps approaching and rushes to put it away in her things.

She does so just in time for Amilyn to walk into the cabin and she breathes out a sigh of relief.

“How did it go?” she asks Amilyn.

“It went well,” Amilyn says. “Maynith is a very perceptive person.”

“Trust me,” Leia says dryly, “I noticed.”

Amilyn smiles, reaches out a hand to Leia, “ready for dinner?”

Leia stands, takes her hand, tries to ignore the way her stomach flip flops, and together they head to the evening meal.

That night, as they follow the now-familiar passage to the waterfall and the hidden cave beyond, Leia continues to think of the afternoon’s revelation. Amilyn looking striking in all black really isn’t helping matters, and she’s stumbled over rocks twice now because her eyes were glued to Amilyn’s ass instead of paying attention to the ground.

Stupid, she tells herself. Because it is. It’s like she’s a teenager again, no impulse control whatsoever. Just pure desire blazing through her. She thought she was too old and tired to feel this way but apparently even her war-torn body has a few tricks up its sleeves.

They sit as usual on the floor of the cave, letting the heat from their stones warm them and Leia is hyper-aware of every part of their bodies that are touching. She can’t stop thinking of the afternoon’s revelations. Maybe it would be easier, she thinks, if she just told Amilyn. Wouldn’t it be better if Amilyn knew?

There’s a part of her, she knows, that is holding onto some faint little hope that perhaps Amilyn feels the same way. It’s absurd and irrational but she can’t help it. She can’t stop herself from thinking that just maybe this whole thing goes both ways, that perhaps their days of pretending to be a couple has awoken something in Amilyn too. Maybe, just maybe, that’s true and she and Amilyn can spend the rest of this trip doing considerably less pretending and considerably more kissing.

“I’ve been thinking,” she says finally, quietly. Amilyn looks down at her, makes eye contact and smiles. “About this whole thing here.”

“Mmhmm?” Amilyn encourages her to keep going.

“I mean, this, what we’ve been doing—”

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” The voice breaks through Leia’s murmured words. She looks up and there, at the mouth of the cave, is Lando Calrissian. He’s grinning that same mischievous way he always has, still wearing a cape as though he’d rather die than stop being flamboyantly dramatic, and she grins as she stands and walks forward to meet him with a strong hug. “Hey Princess,” he says.

“It’s General now,” she tells him with a hint of the steel that always accompanies those words, but she can’t help but smile all the same.

“It’s good to see you Leia,” he says more seriously. “It’s been too long.”

“It has,” she agrees. Then she turns back to Amilyn, now standing, and says, “Lando this is my good friend Amilyn Holdo.”

“Holdo as in the Battle of Chyron Belt?” Lando asks as he shakes her hand.

“One and the same,” Amilyn says with a nod.

“Impressive.”

“Word travels,” Leia says with a grin.

“Ah you know,” Lando shrugs, “you keep your ear to the ground, you hear things. Now come on, this cave goes back a ways further and I’d like to be as alone as possible for what I need to tell you.”

Amilyn and Leia follow him through a winding path of tunnels to a small oval room. Leia spies a rucksack of supplies in the corner and a portable heater that Lando drags to the center of the room and turns on before he begins speaking.

“How did you find this place?” Amilyn asks.

“Oh,” Lando says, “a long time ago I had a bit of trouble in the region and had to find somewhere to hole up until the trouble passed. I stumbled in here by accident, but I’ve kept it on my radar ever since.” He sits down and gestures for them to do the same. “Thanks for coming, Leia. I know you took a risk being here.”

“Your message sounded urgent,” Leia says.

“I um,” he takes a deep breath, “I heard about Han. I’m so sorry Leia.”

“I think you’ve seen more of him recently than I have,” she says instead of thanks. “I know how close you two were.”

He meets her eyes and they hold each other’s gaze. There’s an understanding between them, a communal knowing of two people who loved a man and mourn his loss more than words can ever say. There’s a tacit understanding as well that they’ve said all they need to say on the matter. It reminds Leia of Han, of his avoidance of difficult subjects, his preference for leaving things unsaid. That makes her smile, even as the grief builds inside of her chest. Love that has nowhere to go, she thinks, and she cherishes it. Lando and she both nod and then the moment is done, over, never to be revisited.

“I’ve spent the past few years drifting around,” Lando says. “I know I’m not on your payroll,” he grins, “but I’ve been keeping my eyes and ears open and on occasion I’ve heard information that I made sure would find its way back to you.”

“I had wondered,” Leia admits. “There were a few packets of intel that had, shall we say a certain flair to them.”

Lando laughs, “guilty as charged. Well two years ago I was in a bar in the Malagarr system, out in Wild Space. Seedy little place, Leia, you would’ve loved it. I was busy with a short-term employment contract—”

“Swindling someone out of their money,” Leia cuts in.

“Whatever you wanna call it, and I came across this guy, said he was an Anzat though I’ve never seen or heard of that before. Tentacles on his cheeks that sort of flopped around. He was half-mad, half-drunk, he’d been knee-deep in spice for decades everyone said, but he told me an interesting story. He said he was 800-some years old, and I didn’t have any reason to disbelieve him on that front. But he told me about a weapon, some sort of special ion canon, that had been developed during the Clone Wars, hidden, and lost ever since.”

“And you believed him?” Amilyn asks.

“Well, not so much at the time,” Lando says. “He offered to draw me a map for 30 credits and I figured it was a decent waste of money, it was either that or get another drink.”

“And?” Leia asks.

“He didn’t get the chance to finish it, some Hutt’s bounty hunter shot him before he had the chance. Spice debt, apparently. But it was an intriguing tale and what he’d managed to draw for me gave me a decent starting point, so I’ve spent the past two years or so wandering around finding out more.”

“And now you believe it,” Leia says. “Which is why you’ve dragged us all the way out here.”

“I do.” He leans forward, “look, Leia, I know it sounds crazy but there was too much evidence, too many old wives tales about a weapon left over from the Clone Wars, hidden and never deployed, those running it killed in battle before they could retrieve it.”

“It’s a nice idea,” Amilyn adds in, “a long lost weapon that can solve all of our problems.”

“I’m not sure it’s even operational,” Lando says. “But from what I learned it seems like it’s worth digging up and taking a look at. Here’s the other thing, it’s apparently somehow run on kyber crystals, though kyber technology was still in the dark ages back then. I figured if you got Luke out here he’d be able to use the force, to find it.”

“Here?” Leia repeats the word. “You mean the weapon’s on Atox?”

“I think so. Too many things match up for it not to be. For one, the map I’ve got is of the Daimar sector, second there was a lot of fighting in the Mid Rim during the Clone Wars but Atox was always protected from it. It also went from an impoverished world to a rich one in those days too quickly to not have had an influx of capital from somewhere.”

“So, you think the Atoxians were paid to have some sort of secret base installed on their planet,” Amilyn says. “And that that’s where the weapon is.”

“Makes sense to me,” Lando tells her and Leia has to agree.

“Well Luke’s still missing,” she says, “but I think I’ll be able to do it.”

Lando looks at her in surprise and she just smiles, realizes that he likely never knew she was force-sensitive—it’s not like she bandied about that information. “Runs in the family,” she says with a wry smile, knows he would’ve seen the HoloNet reports about her patrilineage same as everyone else when the news first broke years ago.

“If I know one thing,” Lando says, “it’s not to underestimate you. Now, forgive me, but I need to get going. The last thing I need is for someone to find my ship and this whole op to be blown.”

“Lando, thank you,” Leia says just before he pulls her into a warm hug.

“It’s been good to see you, Leia. Nice to meet you Amilyn.”

“If you get bored wandering around and keeping your ears open, I could a use another vice admiral,” Leia tells him.

“Sounds like a demotion, I used to be a general you know.” And with that, he’s off, walking out of the room quickly and Leia turns to Amilyn and smiles.

“Well, now you’ve met Lando.”

“Are all the men in your life rogues?” Amilyn asks.

“Only my favourite ones,” Leia replies, and opens her hand to show her the encrypted comlink Lando had slipped into her hand before he’d left. She yawns deeply, “oh I’m tired, I’m looking forward to being able to sleep through the night for the next few days.”

“Agreed,” Amilyn says as they make their way out into the dark night, past the falls, and back down the thin path to their cabin.


	6. what I wouldn’t give for just a moment to hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey whaddup im finally back!   
> my life has been very busy but I crushed the lsat, am almost done classes, and somehow found the time to write 20k of fic for camp nano in July!  
> there's lots of editing to be done, so don't expect anything too quickly but it's written and it's there and it's coming your way soon(ish)  
> also the rating jump is not, sadly, for this chapter but for the last chapter when it gets posted.  
> thanks for the love, support, and patience as always

Making their way back to their cabin, Amilyn considers Lando Calrissian. He is, somehow, exactly as she expected him to be from Leia’s stories. She also thinks about the information he told them, a certainly too good to be true tale of some magical weapon that can save all their asses.

Amilyn doesn’t believe in miracles but she believes in Leia and she believes in the Force and maybe that’s the same thing.

“So that was Lando,” she says once they’re in bed, Leia fitting into her side as though they’ve been sharing a bed for years, not days. 

“The one and only,” Leia replies. “What did you think?”

“It’s funny,” Amilyn says slowly, “I barely even met him but somehow all your stories about him, and about him and Han, suddenly made perfect sense.”

Leia laughs at that. “You have no idea,” she tells Amilyn. Then, much more seriously, “and what do you think of this weapon of his?”

“Well,” Amilyn dwells on the question for a moment, “I thinks it’s a lovely idea. I also think that it’s worth looking for, if there’s even a 1 percent chance that it’s real.”

“Mmm,” Leia reaches over and slips her hand into the one Amilyn had resting on her stomach, tangles their fingers together and squeezes. “I agree.”

“I also,” Amilyn says slowly, “think that if Lando’s heard these stories we need to consider the possibility that others have heard them too.”

“You think—the First Order?”

“I think we have to expect it at the very least.”

“Well,” Leia says quietly, “there goes our peaceful vacation.”

She’s not exactly right about that. The final days of their excursion are very peaceful. The routine of morning swims and daily therapy are broken up by mountain hikes and afternoons spent on their own and Amilyn in some ways wishes they could stay like this forever. On the other hand, she is eagerly awaiting the end of this excruciating mixture of joy and pining,of the feeling that her heart is going to burst out of her any moment. She realises quite quickly that Lando’s information has extended their time on Atox and while she had prepared herself for a set time pretending to be Leia’s wife she is trying to make peace with the fact that this heart-wrenching charade will be going on longer than she had planned.

Leia seems different and not different after their one-on-one therapy with Maynith. She talks a bit more freely of Han, Amilyn notices, smiles more deeply, and even occasionally reaches up to touch the twist of hair that signifies her as a person in mourning. 

Amilyn would never dream of invading Leia’s privacy by asking what she and Maynith discussed, but she is beyond happy that whatever transpired it seems to have lifted Leia’s burden in at least some small way.

Their spare time is entirely devoted to preparing Leia to look for the kyber crystals. Any time they are left to their own devices, they go to their cabin, or walk far enough away from the rest of the group that they won’t be disturbed, and Leia meditates. 

Amilyn, for her part, helps as she can. When she was a child, her parents tried to curb her rebellious nature through many endeavours, most completely unsuccessful. One such attempt had seen Amilyn sent to the old temple to study with the priests that held the Jedi texts and legends and they taught her Tev’Sha, an ancient art of meditation in support of a Jedi. It’s a curious practice, one that took Amilyn years to fully master, but now she is more glad than ever that she did. So, as Leia sits cross-legged and calls on the Force, Amilyn sits in front of her, puts her hands on her knees, and pours as much of herself, and as much power as she can muster from the world around her, into Leia. 

It’s exhausting for both of them. Amilyn’s glad they’re now at least getting a full night’s sleep instead of sneaking off to the falls, and they do little else but meditate and sleep and go through the motions with the rest of the group whenever they must.

And then, suddenly, it’s the last day of their trip and Amilyn is waking up to go to their last ever swim in Dalin Lake. She glances down at Leia, sees she’s just starting to wake as well, and she can’t keep the foolish smile off her face. 

It feels like something about the meditating has brought them closer, somehow. Or maybe the lake’s mystical properties are real after all. She feels a connection to Leia that is somehow stronger and deeper than what she has felt before. It only makes her love her more. IT only makes her want her more.

Leia moves, stretches up and in, closer to Amilyn, her face right in front of Amilyn’s, her eyes catching Amilyn’s before dipping down to her lips and she’s so close that her breath is ghosting over Amilyn’s skin and Amilyn can’t move a single muscle and she thinks, for one infinitesimal moment, crazy as it is, that Leia’s about to kiss her. And then Leia moves away and Amilyn rolls to the edge of the bed and stands up and the moment’s over but the cabin still feels charged with some weird sort of electricity and it has to be just some last day weirdness or something, doesn’t it?

Yeah, no, it has to be. Because any other possibility is so far out of the bounds of reality that it doesn’t even bear thinking on. 

Amilyn gets changed and heads out to the lake with Leia, holds her close in the almost too hot water and silently thanks the lake and the mountains and the grey blue sky above them for the renewed energy she’s seen in Leia over the past few days, the hope that is once again burning bright within her where before it seemed to be flickering. She had seen how deeply everything was weighing on Leia, as much as she’d tried to hide it. But now she seems back to fighting form, her passion for the Resistance as strong as ever. Amilyn’s General, a force to be reckoned with.

Maybe not really actually Amilyn’s, despite how well she’d pretended to be, despite how desperately Amilyn wants her to be, but for this moment right here right now Amilyn is allowing herself to think of her as such. 

After breakfast they sit around the fire sipping caf and tea and Maynith asks them to each say something they learned during their time on the retreat. Amilyn worries for a second that they’re going to start with her but they turn to their other side and so she has the whole time that the others are speaking to figure out what she’s going to say. Her one-on-one therapy with Maynith had been interesting. They had talked to her about perhaps feeling like she was fighting with Han for Leia’s affections, but Amilyn wasn’t able to tell them just how right they were—and that she knows that it’s no competition at all, Leia will never love her as she loved Han. 

They had also talked to her about the importance of taking care of yourself as well as your partner (not that self-care has much of a time and place these days in the Resistance) and so she decides to concentrate on that for this moment. She returns her attention to the group just as Leia begins speaking. 

“I learned many things on this journey,” Leia says, casting a warm smile at Amilyn and squeezing their joined hands. “I think, most important of all, was the reminder that joy and grief are not mutually exclusive emotions.”

Then, all eyes are on Amilyn and she smiles serenely before saying, “I think most important of all I learned that even in a marriage you are two selves and you must take care of the one as much as the two.” To redirect the attention away from herself she immediately follows that up with, “thank you Maynith. This trip has been a greater boon to Leia and I than you can possibly imagine.”

The others all follow with their own glowing praise and it is some time before they head back to their cabins to grab their things and make their way back to the hovertrain, which links them to the speeder bus, and almost before she knows it they’re walking through the door of their hotel pod and greeting Poe and Finn.

The boys have been busy. They give them a full account of every they’ve learned about Atox since they’ve been gone and it’s a lot. Beyond the demographics of the capital city, they report on the surrounding area and on the only evidence they’ve seen of First Order influence. 

“It’s a private landing pad a ways outside of the city,” Poe says, sketching it out with his hands on the wood of the dining table. “It’s not very active. In fact, we haven’t seen anyone coming or going the whole time you’ve been gone. But it’s there if they need it.”

“That’s good to know,” Leia says. “Good work, both of you.” Amilyn can clearly see the pride on both of their faces at the compliment and really, who can blame them?

“What about you?” Poe asks. “Did you make contact with Mr. Calrissian?”

Leia laughs and Amilyn can’t help but smile. From everything she’s heard of Lando the honourific seems wrong in every way. “We saw Lando, yes. He had quite an interesting tale to tell. It seems there might be a weapon, something left over from the Clone Wars, here on Atox.”

“A weapon?” Finn asks, obviously excited.

“Well, hypothetically,” Leia says calmly. “We don’t even know if it’s real. And if it is there’s no way it’s still operational. But it’s a chance, maybe, something that could finally turn the tide of this war.”

“Do we know where it is?” Poe asks.

“Alas no,” Leia replies. “But keep in mind, that may be a good thing. If its location was known then anyone could know it.”

“Our advantage at this point,” Amilyn adds in, “is that the stories that Lando heard indicate that the weapon is run on kyber crystals.”

“Because kyber crystals are force-attuned,” Leia continues, “we’re hoping that I’ll be able to find them. If they’re there.”

“What kind of weapon?” Finn asks.

“An ion cannon of some sorts,” Amilyn replies. “If it’s anything like the mega-ions equipped on the Separatist’s Malevolence it would be a considerable advantage.”

“If we can find it, of course,” Leia says warily, covering one of Amilyn’s hands with her own.

“If it’s there, you’ll find it,” Amilyn tells her seriously, entwining their fingers together and squeezing. Leia just nods and Amilyn finds herself smiling at her for just a moment too long before turning back to Poe and Finn. 

She needs to regain some control over little moments like that. They were fine up on the mountain, where they needed everyone to believe they were together, but they’ll be back with the fleet soon enough and the last thing Amilyn needs is the whole Resistance catching her gazing at Leia like a lovestruck fool.

They go for a walk around the city that evening, stopping in at a restaurant that had become a favourite of Finn’s while they were gone. The spicy grilled meats and fresh vegetables are delicious and they all happily eat their fill. 

That night, Amilyn lies awake in bed with Leia in her arms. She’s not sure why she can’t sleep; they had a busy day and she’s certainly tired. Maybe it’s the city sounds, deafening compared to the silence on the mountain. Or maybe it’s the fact that this trip will be over as soon as they find the weapon and Amilyn really isn’t sure how she feels about that, relief and regret swirling around her mind, opaque and troubling. 

She decides that she’s not getting any closer to sleep so she slides out of bed, making sure not to disturb Leia, and pads barefoot into the kitchen to make herself for tea. She starts when she sees Poe seated at the dining table, staring into a steaming mug. He must have heard her because he looks up and sees her there.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks quietly and she nods.

“You?”

“Same. There’s tea in the pot if you want any.”

She nods, pours herself a mug, and sits down across from him. They sit in silence for a while, drinking their tea, listening to nothing but their breaths and the creak of the wood as one or the other shifted and then Amilyn opens her mouth to speak. 

“You’re not quite the young hothead I was expecting,” she says, smiling at him. “I’ve had my fair share of run ins with trigger happy flyboys who couldn’t stop for a moment to think of anything but the next flight.”

“Ha, well, right back atcha,” Poe says. “You’re not exactly what I was expecting either.”

“Well,” Amilyn says, “I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“The Battle of Chyron Belt though, I mean, you’re infamous.”

“I sometimes think if people spent half as much time planning attacks as they do gossiping we’d have won this war years ago.”

“Maybe,” he grins, all youth and roguish handsomeness, “but where’s the fun in that?"

“It’s refreshing to know you’re more than the rumours at least,” Amilyn tells him. 

They fall silent again, sipping their tea, and Amilyn can feel the restless energy that kept them both awake this night humming between them.

“Have you been having a lot of trouble sleeping?” she asks Poe, tries to cast the conversation to something other than their initial misconceptions.

“It’s nothing,” Poe says. “I’ll just be glad to get back to routine, to the fleet.”

“Me too,” Amilyn agrees. “This trip has been… a lot.”

“I would’ve thought you were enjoying yourself,” Poe says, brow furrowed, “a few weeks away from it all with your best friend. Was the retreat not relaxing?”

Amilyn doesn’t answer right away, drinks her tea as an excuse for her silence and tries to figure out what to say. She doesn’t exactly want to lie to him, not when they’ve just cleared the air but at the same time opening up to her subordinate about her tragic feelings doesn’t seem exactly appropriate. “It’s complicated,” she says finally and Poe chuckles.

“Isn’t it always?” he asks and his tone is different now, like the bravado is gone and when Amilyn looks across the table at him he looks sadder than she thinks she’s ever seen him. It’s just then that she realises just how much Poe smiles. She’d never thought about it, or about what those smiles might be masking.

She hums low in her throat. “What about you? Shouldn’t you be enjoying a few weeks away from it all with  _ your _ best friend?”

There’s a tension between them—an indrawn breath of air waiting to be exhaled—they sit there looking at each other and then Amilyn can’t really believe her eyes because Poe’s mask has slipped a bit more and there’s a look on his face that Amilyn is only accustomed to seeing in her own reflection and suddenly everything is so incredibly clear. 

“Oh,” she says quietly.

Poe’s shoulders sag. “That obvious, huh?”

She doesn’t know how to tell him that it was only obvious because of how intimately familiar she is with that particular emotion so she says, “no. I never would’ve guessed, normally.”

“Well that’s something at least.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” she offers, unsure if she even really wants to talk about it with him but, well, she has to offer, right? Just in case that’s what he needs.

“Not really,” he chuckles and she smiles back. 

“Fair enough.” And then, perhaps because it’s past midnight or perhaps because Gatalentan tea still has an ineffable ability to weaken her emotional armour, she adds, “I do… understand though.”

His head shoots up at that, his gaze shrewd, and all she can do is shrug and attempt (fail) a smile. 

There’s more silence, then, more comfortable this time. The silence of two people who are so used to facade that they are speechless before bare reality.

“How long?” he asks, barely more than a whisper. 

“Decades,” she replies simply. There’s really no point in dissimilation at this point. 

“I don’t think stormtroopers really talk about sexuality,” Poe says, the words tumbling out now. “I don’t want to make him uncomfortable by bringing it up. And, anyway, I think he loves Rey. I don’t want to make things awkward. He’s my best friend.” 

The truth of those words, the fact that all of Poe’s other best friends have died for the cause they both swore their lives to hangs in the air between them and Amilyn is once again confronting the startling immensity of the sacrifices that have been made, that had to have been made for the sake of the common good. 

“Well,” Amilyn says wryly, “I’m not exactly the poster child for emotional honesty. I understand your concerns.”

“Do you regret it?” he asks. He doesn’t have to clarify, Amilyn understands.

“No,” she says. “As much as I used to dream of Leia returning my feelings and us living in bliss. She’s my best friend, she’s the most incredible person I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t give up her friendship for anything, so I can’t regret any of it.”

They finish their tea, chatting quietly about other things. Amilyn knows without their saying it outright that they will never rekindle this conversation. But she also knows that there is an understanding between them now, a mutual respect and empathy for the unique challenges of their current situation and that at least is comforting. 

She heads back to bed and gets under the covers, scooching close to Leia who responds by turning over and snuggling her face into Amilyn’s collarbone. Amilyn looks down at her, eyes closed, mouth open, hair everywhere, and she can’t help but smile. Adorable.

They wake up early the next morning and while Poe and Finn head off towards the city market to begin quietly amassing supplies for their mission, Leia and Amilyn seat themselves on the rug of the main room and begin meditating. 

Amilyn can feel the pull from Leia as she begins using the resources Amilyn is supplying to her. It’s stronger this morning than it has been before, clear evidence of Leia’s burgeoning power. They sit like that for long enough that when Leia finally breaks the trance and they attempt to stand, their joints have stiffened. Amilyn groans as she pulls herself to a standing position, her limbs creaking. 

“I’m too old for this,” she tells Leia.

“You and me both.”

They forage for food in the kitchen, both ravenous, before getting back to work. She sleeps like a log that night. 

Their days continue with this rhythm for almost a week. Waking, meditating, eating, sleeping. Around and around seemingly without end. She watches nervously as Leia becomes more and more obviously consumed by the work. She finds herself paying close attention to whether or not Leia is eating enough, sleeping enough, gently trying to coax more food into her, to convince her to head to bed earlier.

She wakes in the early dawn, six days after they came back from Talak’s Peak, shocked to find herself cold and alone. She’s grown so used to waking in Leia’s arms (too used to it, really, she’s going to have a tough time readjusting once they're back with the fleet) that anything else is a shock. She opens her eyes and sees Leia, sitting on the floor in front of the bed, her legs crossed and her eyes closed. 

She moves quietly, doesn’t want to startle her, and walks over to her, slowly places a hand on her shoulder and waits for her to come out of her trance.

“How long have you been awake?” she asks.

“Just a couple of hours,” Leia replies, gripping Amilyn’s hand and pulling herself to her feet. That meant she couldn’t have gotten more than three or four hours of sleep.

“Leia,” Amilyn says gently, the rebuke plain in her tone. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

“That’s what I have you for,” Leia replies and Amilyn can’t help but smile. 

“Well then, as your designated caretaker I’m telling you that you need to sleep more. Have you eaten yet?”

Leia shakes her head no, so they head into the kitchen and Amilyn begins cutting up some of the fresh fruit the resort staff have been bringing to them every day. 

“I’m getting so close, Amilyn,” Leia says as they eat. “I’m sure of it.”

“Do you know where yet?” Amilyn asks.

“No. Uh, well, west. And south, I think. But I can feel the Force, like I never have before.”

“Didn’t Luke teach you everything?”

“Not really, no. He was so busy learning everything himself. And I was busy with Mon Mothma and setting up the New Republic. He taught me a bit, enough that I knew where to start but nowhere near enough.” She smiles sadly, “I wish he were here.”

Amilyn reaches across and squeezes her hand. 

“Do you think Rey’s made it to Ahch-To yet?” Leia asks. 

“She must have. It’s been weeks.”

“It doesn’t feel that long, does it?” Leia says. “I feel like we just flew in a few hours ago.”

“Amilyn makes a noncommittal noise to avoid telling Leia that the past few weeks have felt like an agonizing eternity. “Maybe they’re already on their way back,” she suggests to change the subject. She hopes she’s right, if only so she can corner Luke and spend a good few hours dressing him down for not being there for Leia when she needed him most.

“Rey is a very determined person,” Leia agrees.

“Plus Chewbacca and Ar-Too,” Amilyn says with a smile. “Your brother doesn’t stand a chance.”

Leia has a good laugh at that, and Amilyn is able to convince her to eat a small bowl of cold porridge too before she gets back to meditating. 

She can feel Leia’s excitement through their connection, can feel the energy of Leia’s power in a tingle running down her spine and to the tips of her fingers. She can feel herself pouring more and more of her own power and energy into the connection, can feel Leia draining her of everything she has to give. Amilyn hadn’t really expected how much closer to Leia she would feel from Tev’Sha. When she had learned how to do it, her teachings had all been entirely hypothetical. It’s a skill that is learned on Gatalenta like someone might learn how to make vases in the ways they did thousands of years ago, an aesthetic craft that led not to real-world applications but to personal fulfillment.

And so, no one had prepared her for the strength of the connection running between them. Amilyn can only think of it like the very essences of their beings coming into contact with one another. It’s the most intimate thing Amilyn has ever done. She doesn’t stop though, she continues dumping as much of her power into Leia as she possibly can, willing to do absolutely anything she can to help her.

In the end it’s like a thunderclap. One, single moment of pure energy, of nothing but power, and then she and Leia are collapsing into one another in a sweaty, breathless heap and she hadn’t even noticed that they’d been hovering above the ground. 


	7. there’s a light that you give me when I’m in shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey I hope y’all like this! force-sensitive Finn is a hill I will die on

The moment at which Leia makes contact with the device is electric. She goes from blindly searching, groping around in the dark for something she can barely sense but is sure is there, to a connection, more intense than the moment she first held a lightsaber. There’s a rush of blinding light as that first connection sets off a chain reaction and her Force, her very being, is suddenly connected to every kyber crystal there and she has never felt so powerful, so massive and connected, and then she loses her hold on it and she’s falling seemingly forever though in reality she’s only a couple of inches off the ground. She collapses with Amilyn on top of her, both of them sweaty and breathless, and if Leia wasn’t so concerned with the mission right now she’d definitely be having a myriad of feelings about what it’s like to have Amilyn leaning over her trying desperately to catch her breath. 

“It’s there,” she says once her own breathing has evened out enough that she can talk. 

“Something certainly is,” Amilyn agrees, her voice low. 

“You felt it, didn’t you?” Leia asks. 

“I don’t think it would’ve been possible for me not to feel that.” She puts a hand on Leia’s knee and squeezes and that is all the indication of her rampant excitement that Leia needs. “Could you tell where it is?”

“Sort of,” Leia admits, wishes desperately she were more certain. “There’s no doubt it’s to the west. But just how far west, well that I don’t quite know.”

They’re interrupted then by a frantic knock on the door and Leia beckons them in, wishes she were wearing more than a nightdress (it just doesn’t feel very General-y) but that’s the least of her concerns right now. 

“What was that?” Finn asks as he enters the room in Poe’s heels. 

“The sound?” Amilyn asks. “We had been floating—“

“No, not the sound. It was like an explosion of light only I couldn’t see it, only feel it.”

“You felt that?” Leia presses and Finn nods. “If you could feel it—and trust me, we’ll get back to the how on that at a later date—that means…” She turns to Amilyn, “we need to get out of here.”

“I know,” Amilyn replies and Leia is once again grateful for how she always understands without Leia having to explain anything. “How long until the ship’s ready to go?” she’s already asking Poe.

“Half an hour at most,” Poe says, snapping to attention at Amilyn’s tone.

“Go,” Leia says. “Now. We’ll catch up with you at the dock.”

He’s out of the room a moment later and Leia sends Finn off to pack their things as she and Amilyn work on their own. 

“Do you know where it is?” Amilyn asks as she folds clothing.

“Sort of,” Leia admits. “I can feel where it is and where it isn’t. I’ll know if we’re going in the right direction as long as Poe can fly close enough to the ground.”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” Amilyn says. And then, “we’ll get it Leia. We’ll get it and we’ll get out in time. I know we will.”

If it were coming from anyone else the words would sound hollow but from Amilyn Leia can’t help but believe them. She watches quietly as Amilyn explains to the person at the front desk that she’s been called back to work last minute and how much they regret having to cut their trip short.

“I’m just so glad you enjoyed our planet,” they say. “Maynith helped my spouse and I a few years ago and we’ve never been happier.”

“Oh,” Amilyn gushes, “they’re just wonderful aren’t they? We’ll be sure to recommend them, and your beautiful resort to all of our friends.”

They exchange a couple more pleasantries and then Leia steps up to the counter and pays the bill. It’s only years of diplomatic training at a formative age that keep her eyebrows from rocketing up into her hairline. Lando should choose a cheaper planet next time, she thinks. But really, it was undeniably worth it. Even if this weapon turns out to be nothing more than myth this trip was more than worth it. 

They get from the resort to the hangar bay as quickly as possible and true to word Poe has the ship ready to go. They board quickly and then they’re taking off, flying low over the city as Leia directs him where to go.

It’s an indefinite feeling that she’s following, a sort of instinct of more that way but oh not quite that far and it’s impossible for her to give any more detailed instructions that simply whether or not they’re going the right way. 

Still, she can feel the power from before looming just outside of her reach and she’s tremendously worried about what they’ll find when they get there. Knowing that Finn felt it means that she has to accept the possibility that Force-sensitive beings far from Atox could sense it too. That moment of power could have been like a beacon, calling all manner of Force-sensitive individuals their way. The gravity of what that might mean has not been lost on her or Amilyn. 

She closes her eyes and breathes deep, stretching out with her mind for a more concrete feeling of where they need to go. 

“There’s a cave,” she says, able to see the faint silhouette of it in her mind’s eye. “Are we headed towards mountains?”

“We are now,” Poe says and she can feel the ship shifting course slightly. The new direction feels more right and she just nods, keeps her eyes closed, reaches out for Amilyn’s hand and holds it tightly. 

The closer they get the clearer things are and Leia wonders briefly if it’s always like this, with the Force, or if with more training she would have had the whole picture the whole time. Another thing to put on the list of things to ask Luke if she ever sees him again. 

She opens her eyes in time to watch Poe fly them expertly around the peak of a mountain, slowing quickly and dropping down to the the mouth of a cave Leia had told him to expect. As soon as they see it, though, Leia knows it’s no creation of nature. She’s looking at the hangar of some sort of hidden base and suddenly all the stories Lando mentioned crystallise into reality. 

They land in the hangar bay, and head deeper into the mountain. There’s no doubt that this was some sort of military base. The insignias on the wall proclaim it as the work of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The place looks like it was abandoned in a hurry, and like no one’s been back in a lifetime. 

They pick their way through the halls, winding deeper and deeper into the mountain, guided only by Leia’s instincts. Then they step through onto a ledge that overlooks a large room and Leia doesn’t even need to look to know that the weapon is here.

The power in the room is awe-inspiring; it takes her breath away. She can feel the crystals calling to her, catching at the edges of her power and spinning it greater and greater. She peers past the edge of the ledge to see an ion cannon, twice the size normally seen on board even the largest ships in the fleet. 

Its exterior is matte grey, but she can feel the power humming behind that durasteel plating and she doesn’t have to open it to know how many kyber crystals lie inside. 

Poe breaks the silence in the room to ask what they’re all thinking, “how the kriff are we gonna get this back to the ship?”

“There has to be some way to move it,” Finn says. “There’s no way that they would’ve built this without a way to move it.”

Leia wants to point out that that sounds exactly like the sort of thing a group of people with a bureaucracy would do but Amilyn beats her to the punch.

“Maybe that’s why it never got used,” she says. “Building a mega-weapon with no way to move it seems to me fairly akin to building a Death Star that can’t stop the attack of a few small fighters.”

Poe laughs mirthlessly. “Sounds about right. The answer to all of our problems and we can’t even get it off the planet.”

“I didn’t say that,” Amilyn says. She turns to Leia, “you can move it, can’t you?” Her implicit trust makes Leia feel warm all over. She wants to kiss Amilyn simply for being there and believing in her. She doesn’t. 

“I can certainly try.” Leia responds. 

She concentrates on the cannon, gathering her will around her, pulling the Force into her. She can feel Amilyn standing beside her, lending her strength, and she pulls that to her as well. And then she thinks  _ move _ or  _ lift _ or something along those lines and her eyes are screwed shut so she can’t actually see if it’s working but she hears Finn’s gasp, can practically feel Poe’s grin, and she knows that it’s working. 

It’s slow moving, getting it from that room back to the shuttle. Leia can only go a couple of steps before she has to stop and concentrate on keeping the damn thing afloat. The last thing she wants to do is let the stupid monstrosity crash to the floor. They don’t even know if it’s operational, but either way dropping it on its side isn’t going to help it work better. 

She keeps her eyes shut the whole way, Amilyn’s hand in hers guiding her, concentrates on her connection to the Force and nothing else. Thankfully, the power of the crystals is there to help her, and they pick up the current of her power and add to it, make it stronger. She doubts she would’ve been able to make it all the way back to the hangar bay without that help. 

When they get it safely in the ship, the massive chassis taking up the entire cargo hold and then some, Poe and Finn both cheer. Leia wants to join them, wants to say something or smile or anything but she’s so tired that all she can do is sag into Amilyn, her legs no longer able to hold her up, and concentrate on not passing out. 

Amilyn, to her credit, catches her neatly and helps her sit down on something soft while giving orders to Poe and Finn to get them out of there. Then she sits down and puts a comforting arm around Leia’s shoulders, pulling her in close. 

“You did it, Leia,” she murmurs. “You did it and you were incredible.”

Leia nods against her neck, too tired to speak. 

The shuttle creaks as it lifts off and for one horrible moment Leia wonders if the cannon is too heavy, if after all this they won’t be able to actually get it off the planet. But after a moment they lift off and she can feel them flying out of the hangar.

We did it, she thinks. We actually did it.

And then she feels the jolt of a blast hitting the ship, hears Poe swear.

“Admiral!” he shouts. “It’s TIE Fighters. Three of them!”

Leia feels Amilyn leave her side, listens vaguely to her as she gives Poe and Finn instructions. She tries to hear what she’s saying, tries to pay attention, but she can feel herself slipping, succumbing to the darkness around her, and then she’s out.

When Leia wakes up she’s laying down across two seats, a blanket tucked around her, her head in Amilyn’s lap. Amilyn is running her hand gently through her hair and Leia shifts into her comforting touch. 

“Good morning,” Amilyn says and Leia turns her head so that she can see her smile.

“Wha—”

“You were out for all of the excitement,” Amilyn tells her. “It’s fine. We had a bit of a skirmish but nothing serious. Just a few scouting ships, probably out ahead of the main party. We got out of there just in time.”

Leia sits up slowly, accepts the cup of water that Amilyn offers to her and only realises how parched she was after she starts drinking. She looks out the viewport to see that they’re motionless, hanging in dead space. From the lack of stars they must be far out from any known system.

“We’re out in Wild Space,” Amilyn says. “Just past Ryloth. We thought it was pretty unlikely that those ships would be equipped with hyperspace trackers but we also didn’t want to risk it.”

“I would’ve done the same thing,” Leia says. “Glad to know you’re here to keep things under control when I’m not able to.”

Amilyn smiles over at her, “just don’t make a habit of it. I much prefer when you’re in charge.”

Leia fights to suppress the blush at her words. She can imagine Amilyn saying much the same thing in a very different context and she has to work hard to keep her mind on the here and now and not to float off on a wave of prurient fantasies.

“Well we can’t stay here forever,” Leia says. She gives a fleeting thought to that. Not here, exactly, but away from the Resistance. Just she and Amilyn together forever on some beautiful planet with an abundance of sand and sun and water. No more sending droves of young adults, barely more than children, out into the fray of war not knowing how many will make it back. Just peace and love and no more fighting. She could get used to that. But they live in a galaxy where getting involved is downright necessary, where standing on the sidelines and acting like it doesn’t affect them is unconscionable. She could never back away from this fight, she knows that. And neither could Amilyn. She doesn’t think she could love her if she did, so she relegates those thoughts into the realm of fantasy and pays attention to Amilyn telling her they’ve been here for almost half an hour.

“We’ll make it a full hour, then,” Leia says. “I think if they haven’t shown up yet they’re unlikely to. But better safe than sorry.”

They relay their decision to Poe and Finn and then pass their time in silence. They’re sitting pressed up against each other still, and at some point they’ve started holding hands and Leia can’t bring herself to pull away. She knows that this kind of behaviour will have to end soon. The last thing she needs is for everyone to see her mooning over her Vice-Admiral all day long. But she’s so used to having Amilyn close now that she can’t imagine it any other way.

It’s not even about loving Amilyn. Well, of course, it is about loving Amilyn. It’s about wanting to put her hand on Amilyn’s chin and draw her in for a kiss every moment of every day. It’s about wanting to wake up next to Amilyn for the rest of her life. But it’s also about the comfort she’s unknowingly come to expect from having Amilyn right there beside her. She’s always appreciated Amilyn’s emotional support, but now she wants the physical support too. The hand-holding, the cuddling, the hair-stroking. All those little things they were free to do on Atox that they will now have to restrict to precious private moments throughout the day.

That is, she suddenly realises, if Amilyn wants that. She has no way of actually knowing that Amilyn appreciated their closeness at all. If any of this was anything more than play-acting for her. Maybe she’s uncomfortable right now, Leia thinks. She tries to pull away slightly, to slip her hand out of Amilyn’s grasp.

“Is something wrong?” Amilyn asks, obviously concerned. 

“Nothing,” Leia says. “I just didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“Oh,” Amilyn says. “Well, I’m very comfortable. Are you? I don’t want you to…”

“No,” Leia interrupts. “No, this is perfect.” And it is. 

Poe puts the ship into hyperspace, charting the course to the Kessel sector where they’ll reconnect with the rest of the fleet. Leia leans her head on Amilyn’s shoulder and wonders desperately how she’s supposed to deal with all of her new, or not really so new, but more newly-realized, feelings. 

She feels like she’s been using every ounce of her self-control keeping her thoughts to herself. Keeping herself from kissing Amilyn every moment of every day is a constant act of self-control and she wonders if that will be easier or harder once they’re back to their normal lives. She almost wishes that Amilyn were easier to read. Like Han, she thinks, and the thought makes her smile. It makes her sad, too, of course, but she’s glad that she’s able to think of him more easily these days. 

She runs through a now-familiar list of scenarios in her head. A battle plan for if she did tell Amilyn. What would happen if Amilyn couldn’t still be friends with her? If Amilyn pitied her? If, hope beyond all hope, Amilyn could entertain the idea of liking her back? She plays them all out in her head, the good, the bad, the very bad. 

She’s about to say something, anything, to at least begin broaching the subject so she doesn’t have to live in the agony of not knowing any longer when Poe interrupts her thoughts.

“We’re here!” he shouts as he pulls them out of hyperspace. 

She and Amilyn stands and move to the cockpit in time to hear Poe calling his landing code in over the comm system. 

“Good to hear your voice, Commander,” Joph Seastriker says.

“Good to be back, Commander,” Poe replies with a grin, and expertly drops down into the subterranean hangar. The landing is a little rough, but overall Poe handles the extra weight well. They step out of the ship and Leia spies the Falcon immediately. She could recognize that bucket of bolts from half a galaxy away.

There’s a split second of hope before she remembers that the Falcon is no longer synonymous with Han, that she will not see him ducking under the fuselage to come greet her. It does, however, mean Rey and Chewbacca and she will be happy to see both of them. 

And, of course, Luke. Maybe. She wants to stop walking, wants to wallow in an eternity of not knowing whether or not Luke has decided to come back with them solely so she doesn’t have to face the reality of what it will mean if he chose not to come, if her family is well and truly gone.

Just then, Amilyn brushes Leia’s knuckles with her own and Leia looks over at her and can’t help from smiling. Her family won’t be gone no matter what, she realises. This is all her family, the whole Resistance, and she is far from being alone.

She sees Chewbacca first, seated on top of the ship fiddling with something, a strange bird-like creature perched on his arm. Then she sees Rey standing near the cockpit. She has Rose Tico on her shoulders and it looks like Rose is doing some work on the ship. Leia smiles at their camaraderie; not much around the base will go unfixed with those two on the job. 

There’s a loud beeping and then BB-8 is whizzing forward and Poe kneels down to hug him and rub his head. The sound makes Rose turn around and a moment later Rey kneels down so she can hop down to the ground and then both of them are rushing forward.

“Finn!” Rey shouts, her smile splitting her face. He runs forward too and the two of them hug tightly, both laughing.

“It’s so good to see you—”

“I’m so happy you’re okay—”

Everything beyond that is a jumbled mess that Leia can’t understand a word of it but she and Amilyn watch as the four of them excitedly catch each other up on what’s been happening. Rey asks what they found on their mission and Leia’s about to answer when a silhouette in brown catches the corner of her eye and she looks over and there he is. Luke. 

He’s walking over to her and Leia moves to meet him halfway. They stand in front of each other for just a moment and Leia doesn’t quite know what to do, doesn’t know if she should hug him or grab his hand and there’s this tension between them that just needs to be broken.

“I know what you’re going to say,” she says. “I changed my hair.”

Luke laughs, a short broken sound, and then he steps in and envelopes her in a strong hug and Leia can only hug him back and try her hardest not to cry. 

She has a thousand questions to ask, a thousand things to say, but she also knows that now is not really the time for that. There will come a moment where she can ask him everything she wants to know about his time away, about why he didn’t come back, but for now she needs to be the General. She needs to handle this weapon and catch up on what she’s missed and some of those things can’t be missed.

She steps back, gives Luke a sad smile and he just nods. “Go,” he says, “we can talk later.”

Leia squeezes his hand and then she walks back to where Rey and the others are standing.

“General, is it true that the weapon is run on kyber crystals? Do you know what it does? Have you tried it out? Can  _ we _ try it out?”

Leia laughs, “yes, no, no, and in a while. Have you figured out how you’ll get it out of the ship?”

“We were thinking of modifying one of the hover carts they used to transport ore in the mines,” Rose says. “They’d be strong enough, we might just need some Jedi muscle getting it out of the ship.” She smiles at Rey as she says it and Rey smiles back, squeezes her hand, and Leia wonders just what exactly is going on there. Then again, just like with Poe and Finn it’s not really her business so she just tells them to get started and watches happily as the quartet runs off to work, BB-8 chirping at their heels. 

“Well,” she says as she turns to Amilyn, “I guess they’ll handle that. We should probably concentrate on catching up on what we missed while we were gone.”

They track down Caluan Ematt and he explains the layout of the base. They’ve taken over the living spaces used by the employees of the Empire who ran the mine.

“We looked at going lower,” Ematt explains, “of using some of the other spaces but the living quarters for the prisoners,” he shudders, “trust me, you don’t want to even see them, let alone stay there.”

Leia nods, “I can imagine.” She wishes she couldn’t. 

Ematt shows her to a room which must have belonged to one of the senior officials in the mine. Obviously someone in the Resistance has been around to clean since they all moved in, as the room is clean of dust. Her things are all there, too. Leia takes the time for a quick sonic shower and then dresses in a long grey dress with a heavy grey cloak over top. It’s quite a change from the more practical outfits she wore on Atox, it makes her feel at home.

She makes her way from her room to the command center that Ematt and the others had set up in her absence. Ackbar, D’Acy, and Ematt are already there, as are Poe and Kaydel Ko Connix. Luke is absent, and Leia wonders at that, she would’ve expected him, but perhaps he doesn’t think he belongs here. She’ll have to change his mind on that. Amilyn walks in a moment later, and she takes Leia’s breath away. She’s done her hair up again, her tiara back in place. The dress she’s wearing is long and flowing and it highlights the length of her body beautifully. She wonders if she’ll ever hit a point where seeing Amilyn doesn’t make her jaw want to hit the floor. Unlikely, at least as long as Amilyn keeps looking like  _ that _ . 

“Alright,” Leia says after a moment, “we should probably begin by filling you in on our mission.” 


	8. still I see you, celestial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy back to school season everyone!  
> I hope you all enjoy this :)

Leia goes over the meeting with Lando and their trip to find the weapon, explaining in detail the facility in which they’d found it, and the limited amount of information she has about it. Amilyn listens intently with the others, and adds in information here or there as needed.

“It’s definitely run on kyber crystals,” Leia says. “Of that I’m sure. It seems like some sort of ion cannon, from the look of it. But we didn’t have enough time to look around the facility for more information.”

“The compound definitely belonged to the Separatists though,” Amilyn adds. “If anyone remembers tales of the starship Malevolence in the Clone Wars…”

“The Mega-ion cannons!” Ackbar says. “I remember them from the wars, they had large circular energy blasts that could disable the power systems of entire fleets. They were almost unstoppable before the Malevolence was destroyed.”

Amilyn didn’t know that Ackbar was old enough to have fought in the Clone Wars but he’s speaking from experience. The others murmur excitedly at the prospect of such a weapon.

“Now,” Leia says, reaching out a hand, “let’s not get too excited. We don’t even know if the weapon works, let alone what it does.” She turns to Poe, “how are the others progressing on that? Do they know anything yet?”

“At the point I left,” Poe says, “they had only just started tinkering with it.” He grins, “but with Rose and Rey both working on it I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of it soon.”

The meeting ends, and Leia gets swept up in talking to people about all the important tasks that she wasn’t able to take care of when she was away. Amilyn’s not needed for that and she doesn’t want to get in the way. She’s already checked in on the  _ Ninka _ and its crew—all safe and doing well, if grating a bit at the confinement—and so she chooses to join Poe as he leaves the room.

“Headed back to the device?” she asks.

“Yup. I wanna be there when they figure out how it works. You coming?”

“I think I will,” Amilyn says. “Happy to be back?” she asks as they walk through the winding passageway. 

Poe shrugs, “I’ll be happier when we know exactly what this device can and can’t do.”

Amilyn understands that. It feels like so many hopes are pinned on this thing and for all they know it could be nothing at all.

The device is on one of the lower levels, in a reinforced part of the former mine, and when they enter the room Rey and Rose are both leaning over it while Finn sits off to one side.

“Well?” Poe asks and Finn shakes his head.

“Nothing yet.”

“Nothing?” Rey turns around. “This machine is incredible! It looks like it’s run almost entirely on kyber crystals. The circuitry that allows for that is, well, really cool. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“But we still don’t have a clue what it does,” Finn counters.

“I wouldn’t say that, necessarily,” Rose says. “We know it’s for sure some sort of weapon. We just don’t know what kind or how it works.”

“Rose, pass me the spanner,” Rey says. She’s crawled underneath the thing and Amilyn can hear her pulling a panel apart. “Admiral,” she talks as she works, her voice somewhat muffled but still audible, “I think we’ll need a few days before we really know much more. The wiring is—oof—quite sophisticated.”

“I figured as much,” Amilyn replies. “I was also thinking that we would need to arrange somewhere for you to take it and test it once you’ve figured it out.”

“Yes!” Rey climbs out from underneath the thing at that, her smile a little wild, “and maybe something to test it on! Something small, of course, like an x-wing!”

“Not my x-wing,” Poe says from the sidelines. “Not in a million years.”

“I’ll think about it,” Amilyn says with a smile. “And I’ll talk to Leia about somewhere remote for you to try this out. Let me know as soon as you know more.”

Rey nods absentmindedly and turns around, dragging Rose by her collar to look at what she’d discovered on the underside of the device, Poe and Finn seemingly happy to just sit and observe. Amilyn leaves them all to it, wistful for the days when she, too, had such boundless energy. 

She’s wandering a bit aimlessly, headed back to her quarters but on a less direct path than she could be taking when she runs, almost literally, into Luke Skywalker.

“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s alright,” Luke says. “Amilyn, right? Amilyn Holdo.”

“That’s right.” She shakes his hand firmly.

They stand there silently for a few moments. Amilyn’s not really sure what to say to him, to this man she knows well only through Leia’s stories. She’s only met him once, maybe twice, and both times were years and years ago.

“I’m surprised you’re not with Leia and the other Generals,” she says finally.

“Oh, well, I’m not really a part of…” he gestures vaguely to everything around him. “I guess that’s always been Leia’s strength, not mine.”

Amilyn nods. “Well,” she says. “Care to go for a walk, then?” She doesn’t know why she feels compelled to reach out to him but she does. Luke nods, and they move out into the corridor, slowly winding their way through the web of honeycombs that make up the abandoned mine.

When Amilyn had imagined Luke, she has to admit that she thought of an aloof and arrogant man, completely self-absorbed and unaware of just how much his departure had hurt the people in his life. But the man she’s walking with now has none of those airs, no disdainful affect. If anything, he seems over-burdened with the knowledge of what his departure wrought. And so every snarky thing Amilyn had imagined saying about lengthy vacations in the Unknown Regions, every acerbic remark tearing him to pieces for not being there for Leia when she needed him most, dies on her tongue. 

Instead, she says, “it must be strange to be back.” Instead, she realises that there is a half to the story here that she never knew, that she doesn’t need to know the details of to respect that it’s there.

“It is,” Luke says slowly. “I think I’ve spoken to more people in the past three weeks than in the past three years.”

They keep walking, deeper into the maze of caverns hollowed out centuries before. Luke stops, suddenly, and Amilyn stops too.

“Thank you,” He says, barely audible, staring at the rock wall instead of at her. “For being there for her.”

“Of course,” Amilyn says. “It was my pleasure,” because it was. Because there’s nowhere else she’d rather spend her days than at Leia’s side. 

He doesn’t say anything else and Amilyn doesn’t think nothing else needs to be said about it. She and Luke understand each other. He starts walking again and she matches her pace with his.

“Are you going to rebuild the Jedi Order?” she asks all of a sudden. “Sorry, it’s not really my place. I’m just curious.”

“I think I have to,” Luke says. He sounds soul-weary at the prospect. 

“It’s often much harder to do something when we’ve tried it once and failed,” Amilyn says. “But perhaps you have the perspective now to make it more than it was.”

“It has to be,” Luke agrees. “This, all of this,” he gestures around them, “shows how obvious that is.” He still sounds tired, but hopeful too and it’s only years of war that allow for Amilyn to understand how those two can exist in perfect harmony.

“Less of a rebuilding than a remaking, then.” She breathes slowly, “a chance to learn from your mistakes.”

He looks at her sharply, clearly taken aback by the criticism, seems about to say something but she interrupts him before he can.

“Gatelentans prize emotional honesty,” she says with a shrug.

He nods, takes her explanation as what it is—somethings less than an excuse. “I think I’ve always known it but when the time came… I guess I felt that it had to be done the way it always had been. Who was I to know better than all those who came before me?” He laughs mirthlessly, and then he changes the subject. “Gatalentan?” like the words just sank in, “have you heard of Tev’Sha?”

“Yes,” she says, accepting the turn to something less serious, “yes I have. I’m trained in it, actually.” She grins, “my parents tried to calm me down by sending me to the temple to train. It wasn’t very successful but I’ve found it useful since. I used it to help Leia, in fact, while she was searching for the weapon.”

They talk a bit more about Tev’Sha, its history and how it works. Then the conversation moves on to trading anecdotes, Luke’s from when he was younger, Amilyn’s from more recent moments with the Resistance. She makes him laugh, a genuine laugh, and Amilyn immediately sees the family resemblance in the way he smiles, in how his eyes light up. She’s comforted by that, comforted by his similarity to Leia. It makes her feel like she knows him, not just the myth and legend, but the man beneath it all. By the time they’ve made their way back to the main antechamber she feels at ease with him, Jedi Master or no, and she’s very glad that Leia has her brother back, hopes that it’s for good. 

She goes in search of Leia and finds her in the situation room, poring over a map.

“Hi,” Leia says with a smile when she turns around and sees Amilyn standing there. “I haven’t seen you all afternoon.”

“I didn’t want to distract you from your work,” Amilyn explains. “I figured I would come around and make sure you eat though.”

Leia smiles and brushes her hand against Amilyn’s. “You always take such good care of me.”

Amilyn just tries desperately not to blush. She hopes no one’s listening in on this conversation. Or, if they are, that they can’t tell that Leia’s tone and smile are making her knees turn to jelly.

“Are you okay with eating in the mess hall?” Leia asks. 

“There’s a mess hall here?” Amilyn hadn’t even thought about it but it makes sense with all of them here on the planet.

“Not much of one, from what I’ve heard. But there’s tables and food synthesizers set up and that’s all we really need.”

“Let’s go,” Amilyn says. “I’m sure it’ll be good for morale for the troops to see their fearless General back and well.”

The mess hall, and it really is just a cave full of makeshift tables, is cacophonous. It’s right around time for the evening meal and most of the Resistance is there. It’s a comforting sight, really, the rows of familiarly-coloured jumpsuits, the sound of people talking and laughing and jostling each other for space. She and Leia grab some food and Amilyn lets Leia lead the way to one of the tables near the center of the room. She respects the choice Leia is making, to place herself in the midst of everyone, to make herself available to everyone who might want to say hi or welcome her back or just stare in awe at her (and, really, Amilyn can’t blame them for that urge). As much as she might’ve enjoyed the chance to talk to Leia, she has almost as much fun watching her chat with everyone around them.

This is Leia in her element, really. She’s a natural born leader but she’s never been the type to keep those under her command at an arm’s length. She knows all their names, their kid’s names. She knows when they joined up, why they joined up, whether they’ve ever regretted it. She cares about every single member of the Resistance, treats them all as dear friends, and that above anything else is why, Amilyn knows, any of them would follow her anywhere. 

And even though she’s the General now, even though she has long-eschewed the title of Princess, Amilyn can’t see her right her right now as anything other than royalty.

After they’re done their meal (Amilyn misses Atoxian food already) they head back to the command center. Amilyn brings up the need for a testing area for the weapon, once Rose and Rey have figured out how it’s supposed to work.

“We might need something to test it on too,” Amilyn says. “If it’s an ion weapon like we think we’ll need something with power for it shoot.”

“We’ve got a couple of old RZ-1 A-wings,” Ackbar offers. “They’re nearing the end of their lives anyway.”

“That should work,” Amilyn agrees.

“We’ve done some exploring of the planet,” Ematt says. “Nothing major, just some fly-bys by the Starfighter Corps. It’s pretty deserted. There’s some barren hills to the North that might work for weapons testing.”

“Hardest part might be getting it there,” D’Acy chimes in. “It’s pretty unwieldy.”

“Rey’s got it on some sort of mining hovercart,” Amilyn says. “As long as we have a shuttle big enough for her to just push it right in we should be okay.”

The conversation moves on from the weapon to other tactical considerations. They all know that they can’t stay on this planet forever. With their numbers, their strength lies in being mobile. If the First Order catches them here, they’re sitting ducks. At the same time, out in space they’re just as vulnerable if they can’t figure out a way to permanently disable the hyperspace tracker. They draw up a few plans, contingencies, none of them based on the possibility of the weapon being worth anything. The mood in the room is clear, no one wants to get their hopes up.

At the end of the evening, Amilyn goes to her quarters and tries her best to sleep. It’s the first night in weeks she hasn’t been sharing a bed with Leia, and every single part of it feels wrong. The mattress is uncomfortable, and the pillows are strange, and Amilyn can’t for the life of her get comfortable. She refuses to face the fact that the real reason for her insomnia is the lack of Leia’s head on her chest, the dearth of warmth in her bed when it’s just her. She’s lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince her body to relax and her mind to let her drift off into slumber. She doesn’t have the luxury of being on anything less than her top form, and she needs sleep to be that. 

She hears a soft knock on the door, so she slides out of her bed and walks to the door, opens it to see Leia standing there, dressed in a soft plain nightgown, her long dark hair undone.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be awake,” she says softly and Amilyn steps back to let her in.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she admits.

“You too?” Leia smiles. “I hope it’s not weird but—”

“No, it’s fine,” Amilyn rushes to say. “It’s odd how easy it is to get used to something, isn’t it?” she doesn’t really know why she says that, other than the fact that she felt like she should say something.

Leia, thankfully, just hums in agreement and then they’re both sliding into bed and Leia’s curling up into Amilyn’s arms like she absolutely belongs there and Amilyn doesn’t even have the time to lay there conflicted about her dependence because she’s asleep in minutes. 

When she wakes up she’s alone and she’s not surprised  Leia must have snuck out in the wee hours of the morning and as much as Amilyn would’ve loved to wake up beside her she respects that decision. The last thing they need is someone seeing Leia sneaking out of Amilyn’s quarters in the morning and spreading it around the whole base. 

She heads to breakfast alone, sees Leia already in the mess hall but she’s surrounded by people and Amilyn doesn’t want to get in the way. She grabs food and tea and sits at the empty end of a table to eat. 

To her surprise, she’s joined in minutes by first Poe and Finn and then Rose and Rey and Rose’s sister Paige. 

“Morning Admiral,” Poe says with that easy grin of his. 

“Good morning Commander,” Amilyn replies. The words are formal but the tone belies that formality and Amilyn knows that whatever else comes of their mission she’s made a friend for life in Poe Dameron. 

Rey mumbles something unintelligible as she sits down, her mouth stuffed full of bread. 

“Eat then speak,” Finn says, grinning. “I thought we’d made that clear,” 

“Sorry,” Rey says. “Morning. Whoever designed that machine was either a genius or completely insane.”

“Still haven’t figured it out, huh?” Finn asks. 

“Not yet. The wiring is…” and she’s shoving more bread in her mouth and anything else she had to say is lost. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Finn says with certainty.

The conversation wends its way through a discussion of the weapons uses, their current position, and where they might go next.

“Bastards,” Poe says when they get onto the topic of the First Order. Amilyn hides her smile behind her mug of tea.

“Maybe,” Rose says, “but I don’t think that’s what we should focus on.” They all turn to look at her and she blushes a bit, shrugs, “I just, I guess I think it’s less about fighting what we hate than saving what we love. That’s how we’ll win.” She leans in and kisses Rey’s cheek and Rey goes as red as the lights in the mining tunnels. 

Amilyn can’t quite believe just how astute Rose’s comment was. Wisdom beyond her years, truly, and she finds herself gazing across the room at Leia, barely visible through the throng of people. Saving what we love. That’s certainly what Amilyn plans to do.

Breakfast ends, Rey and Rose leave to work on the weapon some more, and Amilyn gets swept up in the unending busyness of running a military force. There are provisions that need to be rationed, repairs that need to be arranged for the Ninka, and refuelling that needs to occur for the entire fleet. 

The mechanics have more than enough to do and Amilyn spends the better part of her day pouring over duty rosters, reassigning anyone she can to help them. 

It’s almost inconceivable that the battle on starkiller base was only a month ago. It seems to Amilyn like it’s been a year and she wonders wearily if time will ever slow down. 

That night Leia slips into her room again and for all that Amilyn had spent the better part of the evening convincincing herself that she wouldn’t let her in this time, that it’s better to wean herself of this attachment now than later she opens the door without a word and happily falls asleep in her arms. 

The next day as she’s walking through the main hangar, checking in with the mechanics and their helpers, making sure none of them need anything, she sees Poe and Finn walking towards her, holding hands. It’s a sight she got used to on Atox but here it seems incongruous until she gets close enough to see them clearly. Poe is smiling, really truly smiling, and so is Finn and she knows in an instant that one of them must have gathered the courage to say something. 

She’s happy for them, for Poe especially as she remembers the way he looked across the table at her that one night on Atox. She wishes it could be that simple for her. 

Later, when she’s standing in the situation room waiting for a meeting to start, Poe comes to stand next to her. She smiles at him and he ducks his head. 

“It was all Finn,” he murmurs. “I never would’ve said anything.”

The meeting starts so she doesn’t get to say anything back but she thinks again of what Rose had said the other morning at breakfast.  _ Saving what we love _ . She tries to focus more on how happy she is for them than on how jealous she is. She thinks she’s fairly successful.

The news of a new First Order base comes in two days later from one of their spies. Amilyn’s standing beside Leia when they get the report and they share a look that says more than words ever could. 

The day is a flurry of activity, with every single member of the Resistance working to make sure that the fleet will be ready to go, will be ready to fight, as soon as possible. That night, in Amilyn’s bed, Leia runs her fingers restlessly over Amilyn’s arm. 

“We can’t let them build another Starkiller Base,” she whispers. 

“We won’t,” Amilyn replies. She weaves her fingers together with Leia and squeezes. “We will be the spark that lights the fire that burns the First Order down. You have to believe that.”

“I know,” Leia says. “I’m so lucky to have you here to remind me.” She moves her hand up to Amilyn’s face, cups her cheek and strokes her skin with her thumb. 

Always, Amilyn wants to say. I’ll spend the rest of my life reminding you of the good in the world, she wants to say. But Leia’s thumb is dangerously close to the corner of her mouth and she can barely breathe right now, let alone speak. And really, truly, how bad would it be if she just leaned forward and kissed Leia right here right now? How could any fallout possibly be worse than the agony of having Leia in her arms and not being able to do anything about it?

The moment is broken by a sharp rap on Amilyn’s door and they startle apart. Amilyn opens the door only as far as she must to poke her head out and see who it is. 

Rey’s standing there, bouncing from foot to foot, bursting with energy. 

“Admiral!” she whisper-shouts. “We think we’ve figured it out! The weapon, I mean and I’m sorry to bother you this late but you said to let you know as soon as we knew anything and—”

Amilyn cuts her off by raising her hand. “It’s fine,” she says. “Thank you for letting me know. Are you still working in the same room as before?” Rey nods. “Alright, I’ll get Leia and meet you there.” She waits until Rey is gone before turning around to meet Leia’s gaze. 

“Well,” Leia says. “At least we can be glad that she didn’t go to my room first.” The way she says it is, so nonchalant, like she could care less if the entire Resistance thinks that they’re sleeping together makes Amilyn’s heart thud hard in her chest. If only that were true.

Leia slips out to her own room to dress and then they make their way down to where Rey waits for them together. 

The weapon’s partially disassembled when they get there, wiring pulled out from the bottom and the sides and then attached to a series of old control panels. The panels are lit up, charged, apparently from the machine itself.

“General, Vice-Admiral,” Rose says when she sees them, her words stilted, her stance stiff.

“No need to stand on formality,” Leia says gently, “just tell us what you found.”

“Well,” Rose says, “from what we can see we don’t think it was ever operational. The wiring started off quite intricate, but it looks like near the end they were trying to hurry.”

“And they weren’t very good at hurrying,” Rey adds. “The whole thing was a mess. But we were able to work back to the initial wiring junction and then reroute the control of the weapon away and into our own technology.” She goes off into a long spiel of technobabble that Amilyn at most barely understands and only stops when she realises—probably by their blank stares—that neither Amilyn nor Leia can follow a single thing she’s saying. “Anyway, it’s definitely an ion cannon and we can’t definitely make it work. Probably. We haven’t exactly been able to try it out. But it’s powerful, there’s no doubt about that.”

That, at least, Amilyn can agree on, she’s been able to feel the power emanating off of the machine since the first time she saw it. Though, that’s probably understandable when the design of the thing seemed to be ‘cram it full of kyber crystals and figure out what to do with it later’. Which she doesn’t really have any complaints about seeing as it was her people who were able to figure it out. 

“We need to take it out of here as discussed,” Amilyn says to Leia. “I should be able to handle it, with Poe and Finn and Rose and Rey. We can use one of the transports, and head up to the North with the A-wings Ackbar suggested we used.”

“It might take a while,” Rose warns. “We definitely haven’t worked out all the kinks yet.”

“We’ll bring supplies,” Amilyn replies.

“Sounds like you have a plan,” Leia says. “But I’d be more comfortable if you brought some back up with you, I’m sure Poe can name a few members of Red Squadron to fly in support. I don’t want to invite trouble but we have no way of knowing how deserted this planet really is.”

“If you can spare them, I’ll gladly take the back up,” Amilyn replies.

“Then the only other thing I’ll ask is that you wait until the morning to leave,” Leia says. “I’d like all of you to have a chance at getting some sleep tonight.” 

Leia and Amilyn walk back to their quarters together, and while Leia doesn’t come back into Amilyn’s room, she does pause in the doorway and takes Amilyn’s hand in hers.

“Be careful out there,” Leia says. “Please.” She bites her lip, sighs, “some things are too precious to lose.”

“Of course,” Amilyn says, “I know how much this weapon could mean to us.”

Leia pauses, squeezes her hand tighter. “I wasn’t talking about the weapon.” She leans in, presses a soft kiss to Amilyn’s cheek, and then she’s gone, off to her own quarters and Amilyn isn’t sure what to make of that, but despite the turmoil of her thoughts, the warmth in her chest from Leia’s words stays with her the whole way to the weapon test site and beyond.


	9. like brothers in blood, sisters who ride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're still reading this then you're amazing and i love you.  
> hope you like it!

The first day without Amilyn is incredibly strange. It’s not even like Amilyn has been by her side every moment of every day since they’ve been back, but the knowledge that she is nowhere nearby is hard to adjust to. She keeps expecting to turn around and see her, in briefings, in the mess hall, even has to stop herself from making her way to Amilyn’s room to crawl into her bed in the middle of the night.

She distracts herself as best she can, first with all the minutiae of command that sat waiting for her while she was on the mission and then, once that’s taken care of and she’s sure the base is running smoothly (not that they need her for that, she knows, her people are  _ good _ ), she works on tracking down Luke. 

She’s only seen her brother twice since they were reunited and she has the distinct feeling that he’s avoiding her. She’s been too busy with other things to deal with that, but now that she has the time she sets herself to searching him out. 

She isn’t too surprised when she finds him up on the planet’s surface, watching the sunset. Luke’s always loved sunsets and Leia has always wished that she had had the chance to show him the way the sun used to set on Alderaan. Just one of many things she would’ve wanted to share with him; a loving mother and father isn’t very far down that list.

She doesn’t say anything as she sits down beside him, but she lets her shoulder gently bump his, and she breathes deeply and realises just how nice it is to have fresh air all around her. Luke doesn’t speak either, but he does let his shoulder rest against hers and Leia has missed her brother so much these past years that she can feel the lump in her throat growing just from having him near. 

The sun finishes setting and dusk falls and still neither of them speaks or moves. It’s full dark and getting chilly but Leia sits there silently. She knows that Luke needs this, needs this quiet solidarity so much more than he needs accusations or pointed questions. She ignores her stiffening joints, the cold breeze, the dull ache in her lower back because her brother is more important than any of those.

Finally Luke shifts, says “have you seen the sunrise here?”

“No,” Leia says, “no I haven’t.”

She joins him the next morning and the sunrise is at least as beautiful as the sunset, maybe even more so, and all Leia says is, “it’s beautiful. Thank you for showing me.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke says in reply. Haltingly he tells her, “I… I was so angry, when Ben... He turned into Kylo in front of my very eyes and I thought I could stop it with lessons and compassion but I… He was already headed down that path and then the HoloNet started broadcasting the news about—” 

“About Vader being our father. I know.” Leia says softly. “I should have told him, I know I should have.”

“We all should have,” Luke says. “But we wanted to shield him from that truth until we could be sure he would understand.”

That, Leia still has trouble dealing with. She’s still not sure she understands, not really. Luke has always been able to see their birth father as Anakin, as more than Darth Vader, Leia has only ever known him as the man who tortured her for information, destroyed her entire planet, killed the only parents she ever knew. Still, she had always hoped Ben would have more of Luke’s compassion than her rage.

“I couldn’t face you afterwards, Leia,” Luke continues. “I couldn’t believe that I had failed you, failed Han so,” he shrugs, “I ran away.”

“I think hot-headedness might run in the family,” Leia says dryly.

Luke laughs, “you don’t say. I closed myself off to the Force. It was a stupid, impulsive move but I couldn't bear feeling your pain from across the galaxy and knowing it was in part my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Luke. It was Snoke’s fault, the Dark Side’s fault, Ben’s fault, hell maybe even a little my fault for not being honest with Ben about Vader.”

“I was supposed to be his teacher, Leia, I was supposed to be training those kids to be better than I am, to be better than the Jedi Order was before the fall of the Old Republic. And I failed at my job.” He smiles sadly at her, “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this and I’ve accepted my responsibility in it. It’s not all my fault, true, but I cannot be fully absolved of responsibility. And I panicked, and I didn’t want to feel what you felt when you learned what happened. So I broke my connection to the Force and when I finally had enough time alone on that island to think through what I’d done and regret it, I had gone too far.”

“Too far?” Leia asks.

“I couldn’t reconnect with the Force. I still can’t. I’m about as powerful as a womp rat right now.”

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Leia said. “I thought if you were Force-sensitive…”

“Yeah, well, so did I. Turns out, it’s possible. So I couldn’t use the Force, and I couldn’t contact you, and I wasn’t exactly enthused with the idea of making a big enough stink that the First Order could find me, so I rigged up an antenna and started sending out chunks of a map that would lead to Ahch-To. I couldn’t risk sending more than a bit of a time, but I knew the pieces would get back to you eventually.”

“So for the past five years, you’ve just been…”

“Waiting,” he says. “You would not believe some of the things I did for food.”

“Worse than Tatooine?” she asks, grinning as she remembers some of his stories.

“Nothing is worse than milking a bantha, trust me, but it came close.”

Leia laughs, happy for a break in the tension, happier still to see Luke healthy enough to laugh at any part of his situation.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she says. And then, because it’s Luke and there is no one she’d rather be honest with,, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Luke replies. “I’m so sorry about Han.”

“Thank you. You must miss him too.”

“I do, of course I do. It’s funny, even though I know he’s gone, there’s a second, every time I see the Falcon...”

“You can’t help but expect him, right?”

“Yeah, exactly. I keep turning my head, as if he’ll just be  _ there _ .”

“Me too.” They lean against each other, silent for a few moments, just soaking up the other’s presence. “Can I help?” Leia asks, “with the Force? Maybe my connection can help fix your connection.”

Luke pulls away slightly and turns to look at her, the first time he’s looked away from the sky this whole conversation. “I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

They decide to eat first, that they’ll probably be better off with some food and some caf in them, and Leia takes a moment to check in with the other Generals and let them know she’ll be up on the planet for most of the day. And then they make their way out past the entrance to the mines, and along the hillside until they find a secluded area far from any distractions. They sit cross-legged on the ground, facing each other, and Luke reaches out to take Leia’s hands.

“Now what?” she says.

“I don’t really know,” Luke says. “I don’t even really know how I got in this mess, I have no clue how to get out of it.”

Leia closes her eyes and calls on the Force. She can feel it now almost all the time, swirling around her, this ebb and flow of energy that is as constant as life. She focuses first on pulling it into her from what’s around her, from the trees and the rocks and the ground itself. And then she reaches out towards Luke. She can feel the difference, can feel the rough, torn edges at the end of his being, the drop of of connectivity. She tries to push her connection of the Force out to him but she can’t get past those rough edges, cannot manage to connect them to everything else and she drops Luke’s hands, breathing heavily as she opens her eyes.

“What could you feel?” Luke asks.

“It was… like rough edges, torn away, and I couldn’t move past them, couldn’t bring my connection to the Force any closer to you.”

“Could you start with the other way?” Luke asks. “Start with the rough edges and try to fix those first?”

Leia isn’t quite sure how to go about that but she closes her eyes and takes Luke’s hands again and tries to let the Force guide her. She feels her way to those edges, feels the way they make a silhouette of Luke’s seated figure. She feels them going all the way around and decides to start with his right hand. She concentrates on the tears, thinks of it like the weaving she learned from Alderaanian artists when she was a child, bringing in her connection to the Force like a fine thread to weave in. When she finishes the one hand she lets go, opens her eyes, and is shocked to see that the sun is beginning to set.

She tries to move and only then realises how stiff her whole body has become. She looks across at Luke and he, too, seems surprised by the hour.

“I could feel,” he says, “I could almost feel… something.”

“I think I was able to repair the damage,” Leia tells him. “But it took all day just to do one little piece.”

“I understand if you need to spend your time doing other things,” Luke says, like she’s going to give up on him just like that.

“Don’t be silly,” Leia replies. “I’m not going to stop working on it. Well, I am now but we’ll start again tomorrow.” She groans, “if I can ever manage to stand up, that is.” 

They both creak to their feet, plain evidence of the cruelty of age, and head back to the base. Leia’s so tired when she crawls into bed that she almost doesn’t have time to miss Amilyn’s arms around her before she falls asleep. 

The next day they go back to the same spot and Leia works on healing Luke’s connection to the Force again. It’s a little bit quicker, now, like by having healed a piece of it she’s reminded his self what it’s like to have that connection and it’s eager for more. They spend the next day working on it, and the next, and the next. Slow, tiring work but Leia can see the change in Luke as he slowly regains his ability to feel the Force and it is absolutely worth every effort.

The more time they spend working on it, the closer they become. At first, Leia just gets flashes of things: Luke hiking on what must be Ahch-To, or teaching his students the Force. She learns that that connection goes both ways when she sees the tears in his eyes and feels between them that he is feeling what she felt when Han died, the ripple in the Force that moved through her very being. He hugs her tight after that, the hug she yearned for so desperately after Han died, and here it is, only a few weeks late.

The more she heals, the more they share. Leia knows every moment that Luke spent on Ahch-To, knows it as if she lived those days at his side, and he sees everything of hers, too. After the fourth day, on their walk back to the base, Luke says, “so… Amilyn?” and Leia stops in her tracks.

“I should’ve expected that you would see that,” she says, and she should’ve but she never stopped to think that Luke would be able to and she doesn’t know how to explain those feelings to him, doesn’t expect him to see it as anything but a pure betrayal of Han and she is at a loss for words.

“You deserve to be happy, Leia,” Luke says gently. “And I don’t think that loving Amilyn means you loved Han any less.”

Leia tries to smile, “it’s, um, a recent development. And anyway, I don’t think she feels the same way, so.”

“Have you tried asking her?” Luke asks as they start walking again.

“Um, not exactly,” Leia says. “I don’t want to make things weird.”

“I for one approve,” Luke says. “I like Amilyn.”

“You don’t even know her,” Leia says.

“On the contrary, we went for a very nice walk right after you got back from your mission. And, for what it’s worth, I think you have a chance.”

“Well,” Leia says, “thank you.” She’s glad that Luke leaves it be after that.

It’s two more days of work before Leia finally makes it back to the point where she started, before she has finally fixed every frayed edge of Luke’s aura and the strength of the power she feels as Luke is finally able to connect fully with the Force is overwhelming. Their hands are still joined, and they reach out to the Force together: the Skywalker twins and their birthright, meeting as one. It’s like the kyber crystals again but even stronger, in some ways, less of an amplification and more raw might and she feels, in that moment, completely at one with the Force like she has never been before. When she opens her eyes, she sees tears running down Luke’s face, can tell that this reconnection is, to him, a benediction and she is only grateful that she was able to bless him with it. 

The next day Leia’s at the command centre when she feels a shift in the Force that can’t be anything but the device getting near, and she hurries to the hangar so that she’ll be there when they land. The transport is first, followed closely by Poe and two other X-wings, both towing behind them the A-wings they had sent out to be tested. Rey is the first to rush out, joyously announcing that the weapon worked, but Leia concentrates on watching the door of the transport, waiting for Amilyn.

When she steps down out of the ship she looks over and smiles at Leia and Leia cannot do anything but smile back. Amilyn was only gone for a few days but Leia missed her more than she could ever possibly say. She wants to go over to her, to hug her, to hold her hand, to tell her she missed her, but now is not the time for that. Now is the time for debriefings and plans and everything else will just have to wait. 

Amilyn leads the group into the command centre, and explains briefly the setup of the weapon, the associated hardware, and the A-wings.

“The weapon is fast,” Rey says, “and powerful. Once we got it set up, it took little time to recharge.”

“It’s an ion cannon of some type,” Poe says. “It completely destroyed the A-wings’ systems. It was hard to measure the radius of the blast, or how far a shot would reach, but we’re confident that it could be used to disable, well, if not the entire First Order fleet than a sizeable enough portion of it to give us a real fighting chance.”

“The kyber crystal technology is remarkably stable,” Rose adds. “It shouldn’t affect the systems of the ship it’s equipped on.”

“We’ll need a ship that’s small enough to be fast and agile, but heavily armoured enough to keep the weapon safe,” Poe says.

“The Ninka,” Leia and Amilyn say in unison, and then look at each other and laugh.

“I agree,” Ackbar says. “The Ninka’s a good choice.”

“Once we’ve disabled their ships,” Poe continues, “we’ll get Cobalt and Crimson squadrons in to bomb the heavy cruisers and destroyers. From the intelligence reports we received just before leaving D’Qar, there are weak spots on the Dreadnoughts that are vulnerable to bombs. Then with Blue Squadron flying in defence of the bombers, and Red Squadron flying in attack on the ships too small for the bombers to worry with, we should have a chance.”

Leia’s so incredibly proud of Poe, this is just one more example of how he’s begun truly growing into his own as a leader and she knows that, if necessary, he could head the Resistance and do it well.

Ematt and D’Acy ask a few other logistical questions, about the weapon and how it will work in battle, and then they get onto the subject of the battle itself.

“I think it makes the most sense,” Amilyn says, “to take the fight to their new base. It’s where we have the best chance of taking out as many of their ships as possible. Multiple small skirmishes will give them the chance to study the weapon and, possibly, build a defence to it. We need to wipe out the majority of the First Order’s fleet on the first try.”

“I agree,” Leia says. “I think we should plan for an attack on the base, and make as much noise as possible on our way there. A couple of stops and a dropped bit of information here and there about a surprise attack on the new base would bring us face to face with the better part of their fleet.” Everyone agrees on that. “Poe,” Leia says, “The repairs on those old X-wings are almost complete and I need you to make some decisions about which of our trainee pilots are good enough to take their places in the Starfighter Corps.”

“Yes ma’am,” Poe says, face serious, but there’s a glint of excitement in his eyes. “Permission to take my squadrons on some training runs up on the surface? I want to make sure that we’re all up to fighting strength.”

“Permission granted.” Leia knows how hard it is to find training time these days, and she wants every single member of her Resistance to be as ready as possible for the battle ahead.

The rest of the day is hectic—they’ll be flying out in less than a week and even though the Resistance is used to moving quickly, there’s a lot to be done.

Still, there’s some time to breathe, too, so near the end of the day Leia tracks down Amilyn.

“Have had a chance to see a sunset here?” she asks, putting active effort into sounding casual.

“Not from this vantage point,” Amilyn says. “Though we caught a few when we were camped out and testing the weapon.”

“Would you like to?” Leia offers and Amilyn nods, follows her to the surface, makes no move to pull away when Leia grabs her hand and laces their fingers together. Leia remembers kissing Amilyn’s cheek before she left on her trip, remembers how soft her skin was and the feeling of her breath on her skin and thinks about how much she’d like to do that again.

They sit on a large rock and watch the sky turn into a bright mess of colour. 

“You know,” Leia says, “when I first met you I never would’ve guessed that we’d end up here, that of all the people in our pathfinding group, you’d be the one to be by my side all these years.”

“I know,” Amilyn says, “you thought I was weird at first.”

“You were weird,” Leia tells her. “Still kind of are.” She’s grinning at Amilyn though as she says it and Amilyn smiles right back. 

“This sunset is truly beautiful,” Amilyn says as she turns to look at the sky. Leia has to agree, but she’s more taken with the way the light highlights the features of Amilyn’s face than with how the colours look as they meld together in the sky.

“Do you remember,” she says quietly, girding herself, pulling together all the courage she can muster so that she can actually say these words, whatever the end result may be. “When I said I was only interested in humanoid males and you called that limiting?” She rushes on before Amilyn can answer, “well, I think you… You were right.” She looks up at Amilyn and she’s looking back at her and the orange-red glow of the sun is haloing her purple hair and she looks downright heavenly and Leia can’t bring herself to say anything else, to try to explain further, all she can do is put her hand on Amilyn’s chin and lean in and press her lips to hers in worship of this goddess before her.

Amilyn, thankfully, doesn’t pull away. Instead, she covers Leia’s hand with her own and kisses her back, just as eagerly as Leia is kissing her and that moment with the bright sky overhead and Amilyn’s soft lips pressed against her own will live in Leia’s mind forever as one of the best moments of her life.

She pulls back and searches Amilyn’s face for a sign that that was okay, that Amilyn was kissing her back because she wanted to, and is greeted by a shy smile that makes her heart clench.

“I…” Amilyn stutters. “That… Do you mean…”

“I love you,” Leia says gently. “And I’m hoping that your reaction right now means you feel the same way.”

Amilyn replies by kissing her, harder this time, her tongue dipping into Leia’s mouth and Leia eagerly responds.

“How long?” Amilyn whispers, her forehead resting against Leia’s.

“I’ve known since that day when we saw Maynith one on one, but if I’m honest, these feelings… They’ve been going on for much longer. Years, probably.”

Amilyn drops a swift kiss on her lips and then murmurs, “I’ve loved you my whole life, Leia.”

“You haven’t known me your whole life,” Leia laughs.

“The first sixteen years before I met you were just a technicality,” Amilyn says with mock-seriousness and that only makes Leia laugh harder.

They kiss again, leaning into each other on that rough-hewn rock and Leia has to leave one hand free to lean on so she doesn’t fall over but the other hand is free to roam the side of Amilyn’s body, trailing from her chin to her waist, exulting in the opportunity to touch her, unfettered.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asks quietly. “I mean, I understand before, but now? On Atox?”

“I, um, well, I didn’t want to make things awkward. And I didn’t want to burden you with something you couldn’t do anything about.” 

“Mmm, well, I can think of many things to do about this information,” Leia says huskily. “Though none of them should be pursued outside of the privacy of our own rooms.”

Amilyns eyes widen. “I’m going to have to send Maynith a thank you card.”

Leia laughs, kisses her, tangles her fingers in that beautiful lilac hair and thinks that a thank you card is probably in order. When she eventually pulls back she can see the prurient intent in Amilyn’s eyes, can feel how aroused she herself is getting and so she stands and holds her hand out to Amilyn. “Shall we?” she says, “before someone spies us and we become the talk of the base?”

Amilyn grins, takes her hand, and they make their way back along the path to the base. Once inside, they let go of each other’s hand. It’s not that the reaction would be bad, per se, but more that such a distraction is not what the Resistance needs right now.

Leia leads the way to her quarters and, when the hallway is empty, they both duck inside. Before Leia has a chance to say anything, Amilyn is kissing her, passionate and purposeful, pushing her back against the wall of the room and Leia happily kisses her back, wrapping her arms around Amilyn’s shoulders to pull her closer.


	10. yeah I live for this feeling this everglow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god here we are at the end!!  
> thanks for sticking around, guys! also, this is pretty much a hundred percent porn so if that's not your scene feel free to quick scroll to the bottom for the world's shortest epilogue.

Amilyn is, by some extraordinary miracle, kissing Leia. She still can’t quite believe that it is happening, that she is existing in a reality where Leia loves her back, where Leia wants to be kissing her, where Leia has made her intent very clear and Amilyn knows that before the night is through she will be fucking her. 

But it is—happening, that is. Amilyn has Leia pressed up against the wall of her room, their lips locked, and every time their tongues brush her knees weaken at the sensation. She pulls back, breathless, and moves to Leia’s neck instead, sucking at the skin just below her jaw and exulting in the hiss Leia makes at the sensation, at the way she pushes her head back against the wall, elongating her neck to give Amilyn more room to work. Her skin is so soft, so sensitive, and Amilyn wants very much for this moment to last for eternity.

She makes a trail down Leia’s neck, kissing and sucking at the skin and when she reaches her collarbone, she pulls at the fabric of her dress to try to uncover more skin. The fabric is stiff and unyielding and Amilyn groans in frustration, pushes the heavy cloak off of Leia’s shoulders and Leia lets it fall to the ground.

Leia pulls Amilyn into another kiss and Amilyn happily follows her lead, moaning when Leia brings one hand up to palm her breast through her dress.

“May I?” Amilyn whispers, her hand hovering over the clasps of Leia’s dress and she waits until Leia nods to undo them, to push the dress off of her and onto the floor and Amilyn can feel her brain trying to catch up to her eyes to compute just how kriffing gorgeous Leia is. “Oh, Leia,” she whispers.

“The years haven’t exactly been kind,” Leia says brusquely and it hurts Amilyn’s heart that she could think of herself as anything other than perfect.

“You’re beautiful,” she says quietly. “Even more beautiful now than you were when you were younger, you’re…” She struggles for a moment with how to verbalize how she feels about Leia. “Every scar” she says, her fingers trailing over Leia’s skin, “every stretch mark, every inch of your skin tells a story. I will gladly spend the rest of my life proving to you how beautiful you are.”

Leia cups her cheek and pulls her in for a soft, languorous kiss, whispers thanks against her skin and Amilyn kisses her back, trails her fingers along the bare skin before her, soft stroking touches full of every reverence that Leia deserves. 

She steps out of her own dress and lets Leia lead her to the bed. Leia sits at the head, leaning up against the headboard and Amilyn straddles her lap, leaning in to kiss her as soon as she’s in place. Her hands rest on Leia’s waist at first and she so badly wants to move them but she also doesn’t want to move too quickly. She wants Leia to feel happy and comfortable, especially with this. 

Leia, apparently, has none of Amilyn’s reservations. She takes one of Amilyn’s hands in hers and places it over her breast.

Amilyn laughs into Leia’s neck. “How do you know me so well?” she asks.

“I thought you might just combust from the effort of not touching me,” Leia says with a grin. And then, more seriously, “I don’t want you to hold back from me, Amilyn.”

Amilyn turns her head and kisses her, pours all the love and devotion she can into that kiss. She puts her hand in Leia’s brassiere, runs her thumb over her nipple and exults in the moan she gets in response. 

She brings her other hand up to Leia’s other breast, concentrates on teasing that sensitive spot beneath her jaw with her lips and teeth while she toys with her nipples. Leia is nothing if not responsive, thrusting her chest up into Amilyn’s hands, gasping when she tugs extra hard on one nipple. Amilyn could stay like that all night.

Leia, however, has other ideas, reaching up and unhooking Amilyn’s brassiere. Once it’s thrown to the side, Leia takes Amilyn’s breasts in her hands and the look of awe on her face is indescribable. She’s a fast learner too, immediately deft at this and then she leans forward and takes one of her nipples into her mouth and any hope of Amilyn’s brain not turning to toxic sludge is gone because Leia’s tongue is flicking her nipple and it feels absolutely kriffing amazing. 

Leia moves to give the same attention to Amilyn’s other breast, and when she finally pulls away the smile on her face is downright smug. Amilyn can’t help but smile back at her before they kiss again and even if tonight were going to be no more than this Amilyn would be happy.

It’s going to be more though, much more.

Amilyn slips her hand down to between Leia’s thighs, asks “is this okay?” and waits for her nod before she moves her underwear to one side and slips her thumb over her clit. Leia’s hips buck at the sensation, and Amilyn shifts her hand so that her fingers can move lower while her thumb continues gently stroking her clit and Leia is so kriffing wet and it’s so kriffing hot and then Amilyn’s got two fingers inside of her and she can feel Leia’s cunt tighten around them and this has got to be better than the mythical afterlife the priests on Gatalenta always raved about. She crooks her fingers, searching and finding the spot she’s looking for and kisses Leia, swallowing her moan. 

She adds a third finger after checking in with Leia that that’s okay, thrusts them in and out before angling for her g-spot again. Her thumb circles her clit harder and faster and then Leia’s coming, biting her lip to stifle a cry, her cunt clenching on Amilyn’s hand.

Before Leia’s orgasm is even finished, Amilyn has shifted positions, pulling Leia’s underwear off and settling between her legs. She noses into the dark patch of hair and runs her tongue along the length of her slit and Leia’s hips buck wildly into her face. She keeps her hands on Leia’s hips to keep them steady as begins a steady slow exploration, licking gently over her clit again and again. She knows she’s not using enough pressure to give any sort of relief, she wants to build Leia up slowly this time, wants to work her toward her climax like they’ve got all the time in the world because there is nowhere else she would rather be. 

She continues to suck and lap at Leia’s clit in slow, rhythmic movements. Leia moves her hands into Amilyn’s hair, pulling her closer and Amilyn responds by picking up her pace only marginally. She runs her tongue up the length of Leia’s cunt again and again, then moves lower and thrusts her tongue inside of her. Leia’s breaths are getting shorter and quicker, and Amilyn moves slightly faster, sucks on her clit harder now, flicks her tongue against it in more rapid succession. She can feel Leia trying to grind down on her tongue, trying desperately to get more friction, more anything so that she can come. But Amilyn maintains her steady pace, her gentle pressure.

“Amilyn, please,” Leia begs. “Please,” her voice cracking on the word and Amilyn, never one to deny what Leia asks for, acquiesces. 

She moves her tongue faster, flicking it over Leia’s clit in a pattern that adds more and more pressure and then Leia’s hands in Amilyn’s hair tighten and her hips buck and she is coming hard against Amilyn’s mouth. Amilyn doesn’t stop, she coaxes Leia through her orgasm with her tongue on her clit and only stops when Leia’s hands pull her away. 

She sits up, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, and Leia is smiling blissfully at her. Leia puts her hand on Amilyn’s neck and pulls her in for a long deep kiss. And another, and then Leia’s moving them both, turning them so that she’s on top of Amilyn now, straddling her hips. Without a word, she begins making her way down Amilyn’s body, kissing first her neck, lavishing attention on her collarbones, and then her breasts, and then she’s moving lower, kissing her way down her abdomen. She sucks at a spot just above her hip bone, and Amilyn can’t help but let out a moan; she didn’t even know she had an erogenous zone there.

And then Leia is leaning in and tentatively licking Amilyn’s clit, moving in closer and laving it with her tongue and gods she’s a fast learner because then she’s teasing at Amilyn’s clit, sucking it and flicking it with her tongue and Amilyn feels a flood of wetness in response. 

Leia moves intuitively with Amilyn’s reactions, quickly figuring out exactly how Amilyn likes to get eaten out. She brings her hand up and rests it on Amilyn’s thigh, looks up at Amilyn in a way that Amilyn knows is asking for a permission and Amilyn nods in response. Then Leia’s thrusting two fingers inside of her and sucking hard on her clit and Amilyn can feel herself getting closer and closer to the edge, can feel her hold on her sanity loosen in the face of so many wondrous sensations. Leia adds another finger, curls all three, presses her tongue hard over Amilyn’s clit and Amilyn’s coming harder than she’s come in years, the orgasm washing over her in waves of pure pleasure. 

She opens her eyes, she hadn’t even remembered closing them, to the sight of Leia sucking her fingers clean and she groans, surging forward to kiss Leia, dipping her tongue into her mouth and she can taste herself on Leia’s tongue and it’s insane just how hot that is. 

She shifts backwards, sitting up against the headboard now, and pulling Leia into her lap and Leia follows willingly, fitting herself astride Amilyn like she belongs there. They kiss slowly for a while, their tongues brushing languorously. When they pull apart, Leia rests her forehead against Amilyn’s and breathes deeply.

“You’re incredible,” Amilyn says, “I love you so much,” because it needs to be said. Here, now, and always.

“I love you,” Leia replies, and Amilyn will never get over hearing those words from her. 

I can’t believe we’ll be flying out so soon,” Amilyn says. “Are you worried?”

“I’m always worried,” Leia says slowly. “I know as well as anyone that no battle is a certainty. The weapon could fail, we could fail, they could have something better and stronger.” She smiles sadly, “nothing is certain but death.”

“And hope,” Amilyn says. “We can always have hope.”

“I was losing mine,” Leia says. “After all this time, all these battles. Day after day of sending people I love out to die and nothing ever getting better.”

“Was?” Amilyn asks. “No longer?”

“Was,” Leia says, full of certainty. “We can’t have a leader who’s lost her hope, now can we?”

“I’d follow you anywhere,” Amilyn says, “hope or no.” And she would, she knows she would.

“The time on Atox helped,” Leia admits. “Seeing Luke again, helped. Seeing Rey and Poe and all the others just brimming with hope, that helped too. You,” she smiles, kisses her sweetly, “you helped.”

“Do you think we’ll win?” Amilyn asks, plain and simple. 

“I don’t know,” Leia replies. “But the Force will be with us, and I have hope.”

Amilyn pulls Leia close and kisses her again. They know better than to make plans, know better than to promise that they’ll come back to each other. They have done this too many times to do any of that. But they have hope and, really, that’s all they can ask for.

“Are you tired?” Amilyn asks, running her hand through Leia’s long hair. 

“That depends,” Leia grins. 

“Depends?”

“On what you had in mind other than sleeping,” Leia says, and the look in her eyes is downright predatory. 

Amilyn laughs, tugs on her hips to pull her close and Leia goes along willingly, the length of her torso pressing up against Amilyn’s. 

They kiss now and it’s filled with the promises they can’t bring themselves to make. Leia strokes her knuckles over Amilyn’s stomach and Amilyn can feel her skin fluttering in response. It’s such a tender touch, more comforting than sexual but still it makes Amilyn wet with desire. Leia moves to kiss along her neck, sucking at the tender spots she’d found before and it takes a second for Amilyn to realize that the loud moans she’s hearing are coming from her own mouth. 

Leia slips a hand into Amilyn’s hair, tightens her grip on the strands, pulling deliciously at her skull and Amilyn keens in response. The combination of Leia kissing her neck and pulling her hair is heavenly. Her hips buck, searching for purchase and Leia responds by shifting her weight onto one leg and moving the other between Amilyn’s thighs, pressing her thigh up against Amilyn’s cunt. Amilyn gasps at the contact and immediately grinds down into it. 

Leia pulls her hair again, bites down on the juncture of Amilyn’s neck and shoulder and Amilyn whimpers. She can feel her brain trying to grapple with all of these incredible feelings happening at once, any sense of rationality lost on a wave of pure bliss. 

“You’re so fucking wet,” Leia whispers huskily into her ear. “I can feel you soaking my thigh.”

Amilyn bites her lip on a wail. Hearing Leia talk like that is too kriffing much and she thinks she might just be going out of her mind with want, her body and mind reduced to a well of desire.

“Do you want to come?” Leia asks, all faux innocence, like she has no idea of the answer. Amilyn nods. “Use your words,” Leia chides.

“Please, please, please, please, please,” the words rush out of Amilyn’s mouth, breathless and needy. 

Leia smiles, slips her hand between them and rubs her fingers over her clit. She keeps the pressure of her thigh steady against Amilyn’s cunt and it takes only a moment for Amilyn to come, sudden and hard, gasping for air as she bucks against Leia’s hand and thigh. 

It takes her more than a few moments to breathe normally again, to regain any sense of sanity and when she looks over at Leia, she looks so happy and so proud that Amilyn’s heart bursts with joy. 

She leans forward and Leia meets her halfway for a kiss, familiar now like they’ve been doing this for years and not hours. She wants to tell Leia again that she loves her, that she wants to spend the rest of her days loving her, but she chooses to show her instead, She moves, shifting up, and turning them, lowering Leia onto her back and making sure she has a pillow for her head. She kisses her over and over, soft and gentle and as loving as can be. She props herself up on one elbow, uses her free hand to explore Leia’s body with light, grazing touches. She runs the pads of her fingers over her breasts and down her abdomen, over her hips and down her thighs and back around to her ass. 

She doesn’t pay any heed to time, relishes attention and care on every inch of Leia’s skin, continuing her barrage of tender kisses as her hand works. 

She makes her way slowly to her cunt and fucks her slowly, gently works her up to an orgasm and holds her through it.

They curl in close to each other, and Leia rests her head on Amilyn’s chest as she’s done so many times before only now there is none of the angst she used to feel over enjoying having Leia in her arms. Now, now, she can just luxuriate in the feeling of having her close. Now her hands can rest anywhere they land because Amilyn is allowed to touch Leia now, is allowed to kiss her and love her and tell her how she feels and that freedom is oh so sweet. She places a kiss on the top of Leia’s head and Leia reaches for her hand, tangles their fingers together.

“Good night my love,” Amilyn murmurs and Leia’s reply is too muffled to make out even though Amilyn knows without a doubt that her sentiment has been returned. 

Amilyn wakes up slowly, opening her eyes to the world around her, and for one very brief moment she is shocked at the fact that she is naked, that Leia lies naked beside her, and then she remembers the night before, remembers it vividly and joyously.

They’ve shifted in their sleep, and now Amilyn is spooning Leia, her hand resting on her breast. She lies there silently, just enjoying the feeling of having Leia in her arms, until she feels Leia shift to wakefulness. 

She presses a kiss to Leia’s shoulder, another to her neck, another to her chin, hears her mumble a good morning and replies in kind. Leia shifts, stretching her neck into Amilyn’s kisses and pressing her incredible ass back against Amilyn’s groin and there is that sharp current of need from last night, at least as vivid now as it was then. Amilyn groans, shifts, presses Leia down into the mattress and sucks hard at the point where her neck meets her shoulder. Leia moans, rubs her ass against Amilyn and Amilyn’s hand tightens its grip on Leia’s hip. She scratches a trail down Leia’s back with the blunt of her fingernails, enjoys watching how Leia squirms into the touch, and then she reaches between Leia and the mattress, rubs roughly at her breasts and her nipples. Leia pants, presses forward into Amilyn’s touch and Amilyn can’t keep herself from grinning against her skin.

She moves her hand lower, teases at Leia’s clit with her fingertips and then slides her hand down further to grind at her clit with the heel of her hand. 

She slips two fingers inside of her and she’s so wet that it’s easy, easy for her to add a third finger, fucking Leia deep and hard. She’s pressing her cunt into Leia’s ass, knows that that is adding to the pressure on Leia’s clit and Leia is moaning and gasping and squirming against her. Amilyn curls her fingers and Leia just manages to muffle her shriek in the pillow as she comes.

Amilyn presses herself back on her elbows, pulling herself off of Leia, and Leia uses the space to flip around. She surges up, meeting Amilyn with a hungry kiss and loses absolutely no time pulling Amilyn down against her, pressing her knee into Amilyn’s cunt. Her hands on Amilyn’s hips are coaxing Amilyn to move and Amilyn is happy to comply, to rut herself off against Leia’s thigh, letting Leia’s hands set the pace. 

She doesn’t last long like that, the look of smug pride in Leia’s eyes what eventually puts her over the edge and her thighs tremble as she comes. 

Amilyn sags down over Leia’s body.

“I think I’m getting too old for this,” she says, still a little breathless and Leia just laughs. “Isn’t libido supposed to decrease with age?” she asks.

“We’re obviously bucking the trend,” Leia says. “Though I have a feeling my joints will remind me of why that’s a bad idea in just a moment.”

They both groan a bit as they get slowly get to their feet and Amilyn relishes in the soreness of a type she hasn’t felt in a long time. 

She leans down and kisses Leia, a proper good morning kiss, loves the way that Leia stands on her tiptoes to get closer to her.

“If you didn’t have a Resistance to run,” she says quietly, “I wouldn’t be letting you out of this room for a second today.”

“If only,” Leia says. “Still, there’ll be time for that when this is over.”

“I’m taking that as a promise,” Amilyn says, her hands pulling at Leia’s hips.

“Oh it is,” Leia says, voice low. “As soon as this is over I’m going to take you to a very secluded planet and devote my every attention to fucking your brains out.”

Amilyn shivers at that, leans in to kiss Leia again and, truly, if it weren’t for the real world outside their door, and all the responsibilities there, she’d be kneeling down right here and begging Leia to fuck her face.

As it is, though, they each have a quick sonic shower, get dressed—taking the time to ensure that no marks from the night before are visible—and head out to the command centre. 

The other Generals and Admirals are there, and she and Leia quickly get swept up into the business of preparations. Poe comes by to announce his picks for new pilots of the recently refurbished X-wings and Amilyn is shocked to see Luke among their ranks. 

She looks over at Leia, is glad she knows her well enough to read the shock in her eyes even though her features remain implacable.

“I figured I should make myself useful,” Luke says casually and Ar-Too beeps insistently at his side.

The ship assignments are finalized, with Rey flying as Gold Leader in the Millenium Falcon and then, after a few hundred other minor details are taken care of, the Resistance force is ready to fly out. 

Amilyn stands on the bridge of the Ninka, giving out last minute instructions to her crew. Rose is in position by the ion cannon. 

Leia’s voice comes over the comms, wishes, “May the Force Be With Us All,” and then they’re jumping into hyperspace, on their way to a battle that will shape the future of the galaxy and all Amilyn can do is hold the bit of Rathalayan firestone she wears around her neck in her hands and hope.

At the end of the day, they always have hope.

* * *

The celebration after they win the battle is of epic proportions. The Resistance forces reconvene on a nearby moon and the first ship has barely blinked out of hyperspace above it before the booze starts flowing. 

The Raddus was one of the first ships to get there, and its crew doesn’t seem to be worried about waiting for everyone else to get the party started. Leia graciously accepts a drink and laughs at the cavorting all around her, watching every approaching group intently as the rest of the ships arrive. When she finally spots Amilyn—and thank god for that bright purple hair, making her so easily visible—she is so overjoyed to see her standing there, alive and well, that any thought to keeping her private life, well, private, goes out the window and she rushes to her, wraps her arms around her neck and pulls her in for a joyful kiss.

She accepts the whoops and hollers from her people for the blessing she is sure it is meant to be. 

She and Amilyn leave the party partway through the evening, sneaking away to Amilyn’s quarters on the Ninka to go and celebrate the fact that they’re still alive with many, many orgasms.

The party lasts for 5 days.

After the revelries have died down, Rose and Rey get to work on disassembling the ion weapon. It’s too powerful for them to leave it be, the potential consequences if it fell into the wrong hands far too dire.

Rey, her face streaked with grease, grins when she sees Leia coming to check on their progress.

“Lots of the kyber crystals are still in good condition,” Rey says, gesturing towards the pile of them in the corner. “Master Skywalker said he would show Finn and I how to make our own lightsabers with them.”

“There are lots of crystals to spare,” Luke says to her, his intent obvious. Leia can only nod.

Luke teaches the three of them about the history of lightsaber hilts, about how they’re supposed to be a representation of the Jedi that made them in some way.

Leia borrows one of Amilyn’s cuffs and traces the pattern, welds it onto the center of her lightsaber’s hilt, so that the pattern will lie under her palms as she wields it. At the base of the hilt she welds on two gold sabacc dice, runs her fingers over them and thinks of how proud Han would be to see her doing this.

When the lightsaber is built and Leia turns it on for the first time, the blade glows teal, the edges of colour somehow identical to Toniray. She looks on in awe at this powerful culmination of everything she has been and will be and she can feel the tears running down her cheeks. 

When Rey announces that they will be leaving (they, of course, comprising of Finn, Poe, Rey, and Rose) Leia is not surprised. She doesn’t need to ask where they are going or why. Kylo Ren is still out there, somewhere, and as long as that is true the threat to peace and order in the galaxy remains. 

Leia wakes up early to see them off, stands and watches them load the last of their belongings onto the Falcon and is glad that, in some way, they’ll have a piece of Luke and Han and her along with them.

“May the Force be with you,” she says, full of conviction, and she knows that they hear the blessing and the forgiveness implicit in her tone. 

After they’ve flown away, she heads back to her quarters, slips back into bed beside Amilyn, cuddles in close. In a couple of hours they will wake up and set about with more of the laborious work that comprises putting a galaxy back to rights. But until then, she will stay here, warm in bed beside the woman she loves, happy and at peace.


End file.
